Don’t you just love it when you open an email and read something that makes you raise your eyebrows? This happened to me yesterday when my friend Alfie (co-founder of Moblog) sent me some info on a new project he’s running – a kind of quasi guerrilla/viral mobile stunt.
This caught my eye because of a post I’d written during the very first week of BitchBuzz. At the time, I’d been testing location-based services on a grass-roots level by playing a giant game of Hide & Seek around The Big Chill festival. So yes, outdoor gamesy type projects involving technology push my buttons.
Alfie and his team have created ‘What is the question?’ (WITQ) based on the concept of a city-based treasure hunt. People can access the ‘findme’ Moblog site for WITQ and follow cryptic clues that will lead them to 43 objects placed within a square mile of central LDN. The objects are a little bigger than postcard size, are 2cm thick and placed within 10 meters of the hidden locations .
All you need to take part is a digital camera or a camera phone to record your progress, and access to Google maps or any other online/mobile mapping application.
The site details everything you’ll need to play along, which primarily consists of a map and list of clues. Each object has been assigned a blogger, and they’ve all been tasked with creating a post containing the co-ordinates of each of the objects (my favourites; ‘I dislike girls who drink pints’, ‘French blog cocktail geeks’ and ‘an elf from the bronx’). Most are fairly obvious, but there’s definite fun to be had trying to work them out.
Jokes aside, there is a serious point to be made here, as the game is in support of XDRTB.org, a site that attempts to tell the story of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) and TB through powerful photographs by James Nachtwey.
The game began at midnight last night, and the first correct answer wins prizes sponsored by Moo.com, TED.com and more. Get involved girls!