Diamond Ring Hunt - The Follow Up

So, this is a little late in coming – been busy or something – but thought I would do a follow up on what happened with the RingHunt.

Basics are, Anthony (who is friend, not a client) got hold of me the Tuesday before the RingHunt was to commence and asked me to put the word out via twitter about what he was up to.

So I wrote up a quick blog, for a refresher check out this post here.

When this all started, Anthony had about 200 followers on Twitter.

Apparently ‘a friend’ told Dominion Post reporter Katherine Newton about it, who contacted Anthony via Twitter. This is when it started to take off.

Following a front page article in the Dominion Post, this reporter apparently decided to share Anthony’s details and all of a sudden, fair game. Media coverage of this ‘RingHunt’ includes, but is not limited to:

• Dominion Post - front page article
• NZ Herald
• Otago Daily Times
• Coverage throughout APN & Fairfax papers
• One News/3News/Campbell Live
• Sunrise Australia (see image to the right - he didn't want to show his face so wore a David Attenborough mask)
• BBC Radio
• Canadian Radio
• NBR online
• Sydney Morning Herald
• Melbourne Age
• Jakarta Post
• Wellingtonista.com
• The Sun (UK)
• The Evening Standard (UK)
This coverage is simply what we know about there was also coverage in Belgium and Vietnam. There also may have been an ‘exclusive offer’ put forward by That’s Life magazine which was turned down.

Even AirNZ got in on the act, offering up grabaseat from various regions to Wellington so that people could take part in the hunt.By the time Saturday and the RingHunt commenced, the @donoogle_com twitter account had over 1,800 followers. Now I would really like to point out that this whole thing really was nothing more than a guy, who bought a ring for a girl, and when that didn’t work out, he wanted to give it away. Yes, exposure for donoogle.com was an added bonus, but it was not the driving force. AdHoc Hazel from NBR drew some amazing parallels “A search (Google) and then a donation (to charity) just like this Saturday’s gig, a search (the treasure hunt) and then a donation (the ring).” unfortunately this was not quite the case, however, very astute Hazel!

There were some fantastic tweets during Saturday, which you can check out under #ringhunt but the Lord of the Rings references were my absolute favourite.

Word is, that as Anthony and a couple of friends sat at Dockside, they could see about 80 odd people in the immediate area as the hunt drew to a close, and when I say ‘drew to a close’ I mean, the 2ish hours leading up to the ring being found. Anthony was only 13 clues into the 20 he had come up with, the last clue referring to an ‘x marks the spot’ quite literally where the ring was hidden (near the Westpac Helicopter on the waterfront).

Who knows how many people actually took to the streets to look for the ring, although they were seen all over – including the botanical gardens.

Overall, it was quite a success for all involved. Almost. Not sure how happy Anthony is about being the top Google search result for ‘dumped dude’.

No new favourite site... again

My head hurts. IAB drinks were great last night (thanks Metservice!) I won a ski pass, that's gotta kick arse. I promise not to whine and say that they're rigged ever again, as they obviously are not. Dinner at Dukes was also pretty damn delicious. Thanks MG?

At any rate, short week + super busy + sore head = no favourite site of the week. Not going to happen.

Going to take the easy option and say: go check out Donoogle.com - it's Google but with donations to charity, which you don't have to pay. Awesome. You can read more about Donoogle here or you can read about the diamond ring treasure hunt here.

Or check out Chach in Charge - he is the music editor for NO Magazine which I love - and see photos of Matt hanging out with the Kills for their latest cover. I am very jealous, Jamie Hince is pretty freaking amazing. Matt also plays in 1995 who were #1 on the 95bFM top 10 on Wednesday, also very choice.

Hoping to have a follow up next week with coverage, follow numbers and how it all went down.

That was more than anticipated. Brain must be almost working.

Love Treasure Hunts!

OK, so this is an interesting one...

Saturday the 6th of June there is going to be a treasure hunt in Wellington. What kind of treasure are we hunting... why that would be diamonds! Diamonds in the form of a ring, and a ring that looks like this:

Sparkly.

It has a nice little certification that goes with it that looks like this:

So, what's this all about then?? Story goes, guy bought ring for girl, girl didn't want ring. Guy couldn't give it to another, and doesn't want to sell it. Guy also happens to be the guy behind Donoogle.com which is a site I blogged about a while ago here (using Google search engine but each search means a donation to charity). Guy decides that rather than just having this ring sitting around, he would create a treasure hunt around Wellington to give away said ring and use it at the same time to promote this choice website which everyone should use!

So the deal is, follow @donoogle_com on Twitter, on Saturday he is going to tweet clues that will eventually lead to a diamond ring (as pictured).

Easy as pie... what else are Wellingtonians going to do on Saturday?

Using the internet for good?

Using the Internet for good rather than evil? Using it for something other than inflicting my opinion to anyone who will read it? Or downloading porn? Is that even possible?

Why yes, yes it is!

There is a great site called donoogle.com which is powered by Google (all hail!) but every time you
search, they donate to charity. So you can search as per usual, but whenever you do, Donoogle donates to the NZ factions of either WWF, Oxfam or Unicef. While the money goes to the NZ arms, they are encouraged to direct the money to international causes so that people worldwide can use the site and know that they are doing good for the world. I know that the guys behind this are really keen to put out a press release announcing how much has been donated thus far, but they cannot get hold of one charity, and so don't want to announce until they have handed over the cheque.

I think it kicks arse (although it doesn't surprise me) that this site has been born through kiwi ingenuity and good intentions. So, tell your friends, make it your homepage, and do good while you search.

Wait, I don't download porn.