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Only three days after it launched, the collaboration by two Masters studentsstudying at the University of Ulster, Belfast, grew exponentially after popularblog, daringfireball.net, featured the project. Paddy Donnelly and Lee Munroe bothgraduated with first class honours in Interactive Multimedia Design in 2007 and haveused this project to pay off their student debts and showcase both their talents.
Paddy says, "We had to sit up all night answering emails when it first appeared onDaring Fireball. We were getting so many suggestions for words to add to the websitethat we just couldn't keep up with it".
Lee says, "It's essentially a dictionary which has been given a clean slate. Thedefinitions have been removed and they are up for grabs to whoever wants to redefinethem. Our dictionary does not have traditional definitions, the words are definedby people's websites. Say you have a site about eggs, then you could buy the word'egg' and point it towards your egg site. Your site will then be the new definitionon The Big Word Project and when people click on your word they will be taken toyour site."The project has proven extremely successful since its launch on February 25th andwith almost 6,000 words sold at $1 per letter, the two students have been able topay off their student debts.
People have been choosing words that mean something special to them and linking themto photographs on Flickr, whilst companies like Lego, BBC, Channel 4 and MGM havebeen snapping up words related to their businesses. Paddy: "Some of the more interesting words are Raccoon, which links to a websitededicated solely to Raccoons and Idiot, which links to George Bush's page onWikipedia." Lee: "We've been really surprised by how successful it has been. We knew it was agood idea and we worked really hard on the concept but we never thought it wouldtake off the way it did."
Paddy, a web designer, is currently researching Viral Marketing, looking at howinformation is spread through word of mouth particularly on the internet and howcertain things can become phenomena overnight. Lee has been freelancing in webdesign and development for several years and is now concentrating his studies on webusability and web applications.
"We wanted a project that would explore our new skills that we have developed on ourMasters course combining viral marketing with web applications. One day wethought 'Why don't we just sell the words of the dictionary?'" says Lee. "The sitewas built with Ruby on Rails, which made it easier to rapidly develop and deploy theapplication as opposed to conventional languages like PHP. And we wanted a fresh,clean, user friendly site, which is reflected in the minimalistic design".Paddy says "The project is aimed at website owners who wish to have a specific wordassociated with them, but you can also link to your Bebo, Myspace or Facebook pageif you do not have a website." It has become quite popular recently to buy thewords as gifts for other people, linking to their website, Bebo page or a Flickrphotograph. The students continually update their blog at blog.thebigwordproject.com whichfollows all the most interesting words and websites bought, any press the projectgets and other news. The Big Word Project also has a Twitter feed following all itsprogress: www.twitter.com/bigwordproject .
In it's first week the project sold over 2,000 words and continues to be featured onhundreds of blogs all over the Internet. Paddy and Lee have recently beeninterviewed for WIRED magazine about the highly successful project. Why not visitwww.thebigwordproject.co m and search for a word that means something to you. The words are going pretty fast so get your word soon! Take your word for it.
