The River

So, I did this story for today about the Tide Coldwater challenge, specifically mentioning a map where P&G tracks viral e-mail forwarding of their messaging, in a “six degrees of separation” sort of way.

Turns out the technology to build the map is called
ForwardTrack and was created by by Eyebeam R&D as online activism software. Eyebeam has made its code available to the community in an open source fashion, hoping to help fuel online activism. (It’s been employed here, here and here.) Wonder if P&G made a donation or contributed anything before employing the code for marketing purposes.

Of course, P&G is couching its whole marketing effort in environmentalist terms, saying washing in cold water helps save energy — needless to say a very important concern in these times of global warming.