Winston the Pigeon, faster and more awesome than ADSL
@iamsmith from a local company called ‘The Unlimited’ not only launched one of the craziest online experiments that I’ve heard to date, but created something amazing that went ridiculously viral.
The team at The Unlimited sent a near one year old pigeon with the name Winston, which was picked from a competition on GottaQuirk, from their offices outside Pietermaritzburg to Durban. Winston, mission ready, was strapped to a data card and heroically flew the distance in 2:06:57. During that time, only 4% of the same 4 GB was sent over the Telkom line.
The experiment made use of the various mainstream forms of social media, such as Twitter and Facebook and quickly went viral featuring on BBC, Mashable, Engadget and Techmeme.
One of the key reasons for success, besides the fact it worked and they beat Telkom, was allowing for the public to take part in the experiment, rather than just telling a story.
Winston, you can fly my data anytime.
