Communications of the ACM
DARPA Challenge Doesn't Go Viral on Twitter
Credit: DARPA
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recent ended its Cash for Locating and Identifying Quick Response Codes (CLIQR) challenge without anyone successfully completing the contest's full task, which was to provide new insight into the effectiveness of social networks compared to more traditional forms of online communications and media outreach to spread information.
The contest challenged participants to find seven posters that appeared in U.S. cities bearing the DARPA logo and a quick response code. The goal of the challenge was to get people to respond quickly to simulate how citizens might mobilize for aid and relief during a time of crisis. Contestants had just two weeks to find and submit the codes to DARPA, and although the winner of the $40,000 CLIQR Quest prize took just 18 hours to find three of the seven codes, no one person found all of the posters.
DARPA used Twitter to announce the challenge and encouraged participants to use their own social networks to find the posters, instead of relying on DARPA's usual outreach strategy. "With CLIQR Quest, we sought to test the opposite end of the spectrum — zero excitation through public agency announcements," DARPA's Kaigham Gabriel says.
From InformationWeek
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