VERB Yellowball

On the heels of reading David Weinberger's piece on unique IDs, a friend sent me a link about VERB Yellowball.

VERB YELLOWBALL is a big, bouncy, world-changing idea that was created to spread play to every kid in America.

Here’s the deal. We’re scattering thousands of yellow balls all across the country. It’s up to you to find one, play with it, and most importantly, pass it on.

FIND ONE. Someone is bound to pass one to you. Can’t wait? Check out our “Pass It On” section.

PLAY WITH IT. However you want. Whenever you want. Just play.

WHEN YOU'RE DONE, ENTER THE CODE ON THE BALL AND BLOG YOUR STORY TO THE WORLD.

PASS IT ON. To a friend, or a kid you don’t even know. Pass it as far as you want. If you’re going on a trip, bring it with you. Remember, this is a revolution. And you are the messenger.

It's a bit like Where's George, in that part of the point of the game-- or meta-game?-- is to contribute to a record of the object's travels, and the system relies on each object having a unique ID that is linked to information about it. Though in this case, the purpose of the records (or the blogs for each ball) seems to be to encourage more use-- to get other users to play with the ball.

Not quite things that blog, but things that are blogged.

Not hard to imagine such objects connected to online games-- for example, putting objects that have magical properties in a game environment out in the real world.

Technorati Tags: digital-physical, end of cyberspace, games, blogject, sports, unique ID