Here’s the start of another major thing that we’ve been working on for Orange for a while now…
Registration is now open for the first Balloon Race Across the Internet.
Visit: playballoonacy.com
Basically we’re going to set off loads of balloons across the Internet. The one that goes the furthest in 7 days wins – and the prize is a £20,000 VIP trip to Ibiza including everything that you and 7 friends could hope for, ever. That’s it in a nutshell.
Oh and there’s all kinds of stars and bonus doo-dahs along the way – collect 5 stars and win stuff. Hit rainbows and get warped into the future and all that kind of thing. You know, like they do in games and stuff.
Sign up for the race
Visit the site now and get a balloon. Then when the race starts in 3 weeks you’ll be right up the front. Well you’ll be in the race anyway.
My lovely camel shaped balloon can be found here…
Be part of the race course
The course is made up of sites that have agreed to be part of the racecourse, or are about to agree to be part of the racecourse. That’s right folks. If you’ve got a blog or a website you can add it to the race by simply adding a small snippet of widgety code to your site. You can visit the site to sign up, but if you’re impatient and really want to add your site you can bust straight there using this URL: http://www.playballoonacy.com/account/sites
What’s in it for sites that take part? Well in hard terms it’ll drive traffic to your site. There’s going to be people visiting your site to see their balloons pass over it. And if the race passes over an interesting page people might just stop by to have a look. In softer terms it might just be a bit of fun.
Let Balloonacy commence.
Love this and will be signing up for a widgety thing for my blog!
Iain, This is excellent! Congratulations pokers. Love it.
Best thing you’ve done yet for Orange – I think it has much more substance than the unlimted webpage :)
10/10
Though Iain, your widget “ate” my Twitter widget.
Bring on the battle of the widgets!!!
LOVE IT!
Fantastic. Really liking this idea. Think it’s going to get absolutely everywhere. Instead of never ending webpage, you’ll have a never-ending game. Top work Pokers
Nice one, we’ll be racing :)
i love the idea, great. But the instructional copy and user flow is awful. You explain it better yourself at the top of this page whats going to (key thing – going to in 20 days, not now) happen. Its all geared up for the week/days before rather than a ‘get ready’ stage. Even when you do sign up you get an email saying ‘your balloon is ready for launch’ ..but i cant….not yet as far as i know… is it just me? Shame – a brilliant idea, and project, is spoiled by needlessly bad user experience.
YOU = GENIUS.
Nice work – you need to clear the WP-Cache plug-in cache though, otherwise it won’t show up.
wonderful idea
love the idea of allowing sites to participate, a perfect way to spread the word
Love the site, can’t wait for the race, a truly unique idea.
However a little copy error under ‘blogger’ and ‘typepad’ I noticed, it reads on both…
‘Click the install button and log in into your Typepad account and the and confirm the installation and a placeholder will appear in the corner you have defined in your settings.’
Surely it should be something like,
‘Click the install button and log into your Typepad account. Next confirm installation and a placeholder will appear in the corner you have defined in your settings.’
Sorry the copywriter in me could not help myself.
Fantastic, can’t wait for the leg of the race which goes through my site. Loving the widget too.
I agree with Ed. Fantastic idea, but the main site is in need of some clarification on how the balloon race actually works, preferably with some visual example.
But to repeat myself, love the idea.
This is brilliant, Iain. For user participation and widgety goodness i reckon it beats uniqlock hands down.
Will there be a starting gun?
Amazing idea, so refreshingly awesome and right on!!! This site rocks!
Thanks for this, really!!! You just upped the bar on ideas!
I cant seem to get the boost section working. I have invited 2 friends to play. Both have joined the game yet i dont appear to have recieved any boosts. Also can you invite people to play after the 23rd?
Love the concept.
I’d like to see a way to edit the balloon – mine was rejected – probably for including a url in the text although that was not overtly stated.
Currently my balloon status is “ready to race”, but the headline and email feedback say rejected – a bit of a mixed message.
One of the big online ideas of 2008…
I signed up for balloonacy and after the initial email heard nothing. The same thing for a few other people in our office who didn’t engage with the event because there was no email reminder. Shame as it looked like a lovely idea.