Four years ago during the World Cup I blogged about how Panini stickers were the original social media.
I’m fascinated at how a Greek defender and a spare Polish midfielder can bring people together and forge connections.
I’m also fascinated at how as an extra layer on top of these human interactions the social web is being put to use.
There’s the inspired Twitter hashtag #gotgotneed that Panini deployed.
There’s stories like Russ Cockburn only spending £90 to collect the entire Panini sticker book because he used the closed Facebook group Panini World Cup Swapsies I belong to with 117 members that I belong to that just grows and grows.
The majestic epic brilliance of the got, got need machine…
But what’s also caught my eye is a web application knocked up by brewcamp colleague Simon Whitehouse from Birmingham. Called the Got, Got Need Machine it’s a way of working out based on maths how many stickers you need to buy in order to complete your collection based on probability and a whole load of sums. You can see it here:
Me and Simon have talked before about open data and data. I’m a bit of a sceptic. When I see it demonstrated it’s brilliant. But I think the open data community are too inward looking and too keen to impress each other rather than impress real people whose lives they could make a big difference to. Open data has not delivered on a promise to change the world. That’s not to say it won’t. But it’s reaching out as this does that will help it.
So, if data crunched to produce something can work for Panini stickers what could it do crunched for other comms projects?
That’s an idea to swap.
But first go and check out Simon’s website.