The premise was intriguing: the world's first "novel wiki," as in a story written by anyone who cared to participate. It would be a grand scientific endeavor, an attempt to see if a "a collaborative, wiki-based creative writing exercise" can work. Thus, AMillionPenguins.com was born, billed as an attempt to see if a "million penguins, tapping at a million keyboards" could produce a 'crowdsourced' novel, a wiki-novel experiment sponsored by Penguin Publishing and De Montfort University Leicester. Hey, that's how Wikipedia works, right? And after all, open source software is developed that way.
AMillionPenguins.com gets high marks for originality and promotional value. As for the emerging product, well, you be the judge:
On the opposite side of the globe, in Melbourne, Australia, Mr. Bell sat beside his wife‘s hospital bed at Royal Melbourne, waiting. Her comatosed state had taken ten years off her eyes, and Mr. Bell was beginning to think he was falling in love, all over again. He also realized he hated his name. 'Today I am no longer known as Mr. Bell', shouted Mr. Bell, 'From now on I shall be known as Senator Jupiter Teetjuc, and I promise death on any who fail to recognize my new name." Realizing he might be a tad dramatic he settled on Charlie Two. Since he already knew a Charlie, and one would be a horrible last name. "Or would it?", he thought to himself. "God damn you life, why must your questions always have three answers?", he yelled quietly so someone could hear him, but not loud enough that the orderly would come in and utter a catch phrase from some Australian Tv show.
Think you can do better? MediaWiki is a free software wiki package you can download courtesy of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Originally written for Wikipedia, it is used for several other projects of the foundation and by many other wikis.
Can you hear the collective muse calling?
UPDATE: You may have trouble accessing the AMillionPenguins website; their server has been overwhelmed, presumably by eager wiki-ers.
Hat tip to TrendHunter Magazine
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