While some early scouting parties made it to Austin, TX as part of our launch, a larger army of Collectivus Rubber Duckie Thingies are on their way to find mayhem and adventure with those also descending into the area to attend SxSW Interactive.
If you’ve been trying to get your hands on our Thingies, downtown Austin will be a great place to look over the next week. After that, the Thingies will hopefully journey across the world with all of the new friends they’ll have made in the Lone Star state. Will you be one of them?
The best way score a Thingie is to keep your eyes open for them, they could be anywhere. They are attracted to photo opportunities, beer, BBQ, and parties. They try to avoid small children and pets.
Another way is to keep an eye out for our Chief Mischief Officer: Traci. Traci will be all around Interactive and related events. She may even be wearing her chicken hat (don’t ask). If you run into her, say "Hi!"
Follow the Collectivus Twitter account for live updates from Austin and info on where to find Thingies and find us. You’re also welcome to follow Traci and myself (Josh) on Twitter for updates. We’re excited to meet new people and catch-up with online and offline friends.
Social Location services, games, entertainment and technology are going to be very popular topics at this year’s conference. While our humble little project won’t be the talk of the town, we’re looking forward to talking to you about it and getting your feedback.
We’re also hard at work on fixing bugs and adding some new features; we’ve only exposed a small part of what Collectivus will eventually be. We’ll have a recap toward the end of March reporting on our first two months live.
Thanks for your continued support and see you in Austin!
A little over two weeks ago we unleashed Collectivus upon the world, changing forever the dynamic between people and rubber duckies. We wanted to share with you some highlights of our story so far:
- Ignition
- At midnight Eastern on January 26th, we flipped the bit and activated the Collectivus.
- First!
- Tracey Ewart becomes the first person ever to encounter a Thingie in the wild.
- Mystery Boxes
- The invasion of Thingies began with sending small armies out to many of the brand name people we know. More are shipping out soon.
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Jay Rishel posts his unboxing pictures to Collectivus. Many other unboxing photos have shown-up online as well.
- Oh Baby!
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Hillary Rothrock becomes a trendsetter by posting the first picture of a Collectivus Thingie with a baby. Many more have followed.
- Wolfberry
- Probably the most wild adventure of a Thingie has been that of Wolfberry. In the span of a few days “Wolfy” was cooked, chewed on, and then taken cross-country skiing.
- The Snowpocalypse
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The most popular Thingie photo-op so far has been people taking duckies out into the snow during the recent snow storms on the east coast of the US.
- Oh, Canada
- The furthest the Thingies have migrated to so far is Vancouver, BC and into the care of our friend Colleen Coplick — who was quickly overwhelmed by multiple duckies. We do have it on good authority that Thingies are making their way across the ocean soon. Keep an eye out.
- 146…
- As of this posting, the number of Encounters people have had with Thingies.
- 5…
- Days so far where something crashed the site.
- 1…
- Number of bugs found by our Attorney of all people. We love her so.
We want to shout out a big "thank you" to everyone using Collectivus for all of the support and for getting Thingies out to see the world. We’re hard at work fixing bugs, developing new features and preparing new surprises.
If you have any questions or would like more information on Collectivus, drop us a line. To stay up to date on the latest Collectivus happenings, follow Collectivus on Twitter and become a Collectivus Fan on Facebook.
Collectivus
Collective Detective is happy to announce the first public release of Collectivus, a new social location experience where you can literally take it or leave it. While many social location sites focus on having people "check in" at a location, on Collectivus, people help tell the story of Thingies and check them in at stops along their journey.
Collectivus is about the unseen connections between people as they help Thingies get from place-to-place. It’s part game, part social discovery, part exploration and we hope very entertaining.
The adventure of Collectivus is what you make of it.
What’s a Thingie?
Oh yeah, Collectivus Thingies™ are items that travel around, encountering new people and new places. We’ve launched with Collectivus Rubber Duckie Thingies™ as our first series, many of them are on their way to a first encounter with someone, somewhere right now.
How does it Work?
It’s easy! Each Thingie has a unique code on the bottom of it. When you encounter a Thingie, simply enter the code on Collectivus site, tell us where you encountered the Thingie and a little about your encounter. That’s it.
You can also see who else is encountering Thingies and search to see if there are any Thingies near you.
But Wait, There’s More!
In follow-up posts we’ll talk more about the back story of Collectivus and talk more about some of the current and upcoming features. We’re just getting started, so please check back for more features, announcements, and news.
You know you have many choices when it comes to fun social location activities. We appreciate you checking us out. If you have any questions, feedback or suggestions, please drop us a line.
