I stumbled across this site this morning when trawling through my Digg feed and, before I realised it was part of Mind Candy's ARG Perplex City, I'd tagged it for my research site - where I'm trying to understand an aspect of the six degrees of separation phenomenon. Now I get to write about it here, because it's part of a game. Marvellous. I love it when my worlds collide.
Let me back up.
The site is searching for a Japanese man named Satoshi whose only context is a photo of him in Kaisersberg in Alsace (not far from Strasbourg, {where my mum used to work with fellow scientists...from Japan) HSFP). His identity bears some relation to the answer to a puzzle card in the Perplex City ARG, which, rumour has it, is approaching a dramatic conclusion. While there's no prize for figuring out who Satoshi is, the ultimate winner of the game will receive a phat wad of cash.
Chances are, you know who Satoshi is even if he looks like a stranger to you because according to Stanley MIllgram's empirical study of the Small World phenomenon, the whole world is connected to one another by an average of 5-7 people. Sure, the theory's contested and sure, there are more scientific projects out there seeking to understand how we're all related in a connected age, but for the fun of it - does anyone know Satoshi?
Answers, please, to FindSatoshi.com.
