The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced that the MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team won the $40,000 cash prize in the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that required participants to locate 10 large, red balloons that had been placed at undisclosed locations across the United States. The MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) team received the prize for being the first to identify the locations of all 10 balloons.
The winning team completed the challenge in under 9 hours by harnessing the internet to broadcast the fact that they were passing on all the prize money to those who help them win the challenge. They announced the MLM scheme on their challenge website as follows:
The MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team is interested in studying information flow in social networks, so if we win, we’re giving all the money away to the people who help us find the balloons!
The website outlined an incentive scheme, which resembled principles similar to those of multi-level marketing (MLM) also known as ‘network marketing’.
The site acted as a central location for sign-ups, affiliate team management, social network sharing mechanisms and as a place to report sightings. In essence, it not only rewarded the ‘balloon spotters’ but also rewarded those who referred the spotter to sign up with the team. Furthermore, the ‘referrers of the referrers’ were rewarded three levels deep into ‘the downline chain’. Their web sites sums this up as follows:
We’re giving $2000 per balloon to the first person to send us the correct coordinates, but that’s not all — we’re also giving $1000 to the person who invited them. Then we’re giving $500 whoever invited the inviter, and $250 to whoever invited them, and so on… (see how it works).
The Challenge has captured the imagination of people around the world, is rich with scientific intrigue, and, we hope, is part of a growing ‘renaissance of wonder’ throughout the nation,” said DARPA director, Dr. Regina E. Dugan. DARPA salutes the MIT team for successfully completing this complex task less than 9 hours after balloon launch.
DARPA announced the Network Challenge to mark the 40th anniversary of the ARPANet, pre-cursor to today’s Internet, to explore how broad-scope problems can be tackled using social networking tools. The Challenge explores basic research issues such as mobilization, collaboration, and trust in diverse social networking constructs and could serve to fuel innovation across a wide spectrum of applications.
DARPA plans to meet with teams to review the approaches and strategies used to build networks, collect information, and participate in the Challenge.
DARPA is the central research and development organization for the USA Department of Defense (DoD). The Agency manages and directs research and development projects for DoD and pursues research and technology where the risk and payoff are both very high and where success may provide dramatic advances in support of military missions.
With DARPA showing an interest in using social networks for defence, it might not be too long before you receive a text message from the government ‘urging’ you to point your I-phone 32 degrees north and start capturing with the video recorder.
Further Information
About MLM
- What is Network Marketing?
- Multi-Level Marketing Opportunities
- Poll - The Best Types of Product for MLMers to Distribute
About The Challenge
- The MIT Team Website: http://balloon.media.mit.edu/
- Prize News Source: “MIT RED BALLOON TEAM WINS DARPA NETWORK CHALLENGE” - http://www.darpa.milnews/2009/DARPAnetworkchallengewinner2009.pdf
- Challenge Announcement: “DARPA ANNOUNCES NEW CHALLENGE COMPETITION” - http://www.darpa.mil/news/2009/NetworkChallenge.pdf
