10 Red Balloons

On December 5th, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) set 10 red balloons in various locations around the US. Teams proceeded to use social networks (primarily Twitter) to pass along information on where the balloons were moored. DARPA planned to test out how accurately social networks could pass along information.

Responses were originally to be accepted until December 14th. How well do social networks pass along information? Well enough that a team from MIT determined the locations of all 10 balloons by Saturday afternoon.

Impressive!