Help us find the red balloons and we'll make a giant flying cupcake!

We want to harness the good side of the web. The happy silly fun part that makes you laugh and tap into the power of the meme.  In order to succeed we need to let people know we’re here-

Things you can do before Dec 5th:

• Follow our twitter feeds: @findredballoons, @craftyb @airigami for updates & info and RT/share links
• Share this website with friends (do so courteously, please don’t spam- spam & cupcakes don’t mix, blech!)
  
• Make silly mashups and share them on our Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/flyingcupcake/
  
• Use the Flying Cupcake-inator to put a flying cupcake on your favorite website and share
• Comment on blogs, articles, boards etc. But again- be respectful of other teams/don’t spam non-related issues, we don’t want to irritate people- this is about fun!
• Somebody get Tay Zonday to whip up a song about “Choc-late cupcakes!” (I will make you a t-shirt if you succeed, beadazzled even)
• Anybody know anyone at Betty Crocker or Pilsbury? A little extra “dough” and promotion never hurt a giant flying cupcake… call me, we’ll talk…

On December 5th:

• still rock out with all of the above
• Keep your eyes peeled in your neighborhood
• Data mine baby! Listen to the tweets, the facebooks the flickrs and all the other myspaces inbetween for information on sightings locations
• listen to your local radio/local TV etc
• If you believe you have a legitimate sighting- you can contact Larry directly and provide him with as much information re: the location of the balloon (we need to provide GPS coordinates, but those can be determined by street address if GPS is not available)
• I hate to say it, but if you do have a true sighting, once you’ve told Larry- keep it to yourself. Don’t tweet/blog/etc. You’ll get credit in the end!
• Look out for phonies/fakes. Each official balloon will be accompanied by an official DARPA rep.
• I get the feeling that they might switch things up at the last minute to diffuse any copycats- maybe change the color of the balloon or something… would be a good test of the network to see how we handle a last minute change like that… but it’s just a hunch.

We can submit sightings through noon on December 14th- so if you come across information after the 5th- send it to Larry anyway.

Thank you.

Really, I mean it. Chances are if you’re reading this you took the time to read through my silly website, and I appreciate that. I hope you’ve had some giggles along the way.

It’s been a really rough few years for the whole-wide world,  I think we all could use a little levity. And that’s why we want to celebrate the 40th birthday of the Internet in style, with as many people as possible. I believe this project is the way to do it. Even if we don’t win the DARPA challenge per se, if even just the idea of this project makes you giggle, then well… we’ve done our job.

But dude?! SERIOUSLY- A giant flying cupcake! Come on!! It would be awesome! So let’s do this!! Gooooo team!