Wikipedia is completely run by volunteers, but there are costs associated
with running such a big site. They are looking to raise some money to help
keep them going for another year, so if you love wikipedia (and who
doesn’t), then you can donate here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Now/en
Go on, you’ll feel all warm and gooey inside.
I am regularly impressed with the people at Penguin UK for their willingness to embrace new ways of telling stories. First there was their wiki-book experiment A Millions Penguins that invited mass-collaboration to create a slightly schizoid tale.
Then came We Tell Stories - a project that took six respected authors and challenged them to add dynamism into traditional writing through the use of social media and twitter, googlemaps and live online writing sessions.
So I was impressed again when I noticed a number of blank covered books in my local bookshop that invites readers to create their own cover designs for classic stories. Perhaps less geeky than their previous experiments, but the first (as far as I can tell) that marries their traditional publishing business with a experience co-creation concept. The project, called My Penguin, invites readers who have created covers to share their work online to sit alongside celebrity efforts from Beck, Razorlight and Ryan Adams. Sweet.
And if you get bored designing book covers why not design a tshirt for Boxfresh and win stuff (judged by the Boxfresh community, natch).
My buddy at AKQA alerted me to this - Nike PhotoID allows users to take a photo of anything they like on their mobiles, and via photo recognition, the two dominant colours in that image will be used to create a pair of Nike Dunk high-tops. An image of the shoes is sent back to your phone, along with a unique code that can be used to buy the trainers online. Simple but rather cool use of the mobile as a personalisation engine. Sweet.
