A Wish Radio

Many interesting ideas and people came together in 1993 to make the animated movie We’re Back: A Dinosaur’s Story. In this movie a bubble-producing gizmo that Captain Neweyes dubbed a “wish radio” is capable of tuning in to the wishes of children across the globe. Some want a toy. Some want to stop fighting with someone. Some want a friend. Fast-forward fifteen years. Since We’re Back we humans have developed the public internet, blogging, Twitter, and finally We Feel Fine and Twistori. The short story is that now we can track what we humans love, hate, feel, and wish. Do you want to see?

We Feel Fine collected snippets of our lives first. This video from the TED conference describes how Jonathon Harris created it. WFF is a bubble-producing gizmo that trolls the blogosphere for entries containing the word “feel” and posts those sentences in several graphic interfaces, some including photos. As you sit and watch, you are able to see how the English-speaking world is feeling right now. I cannot do it justice; WFF is really something you have to see for yourself.

Twistori trolls Twitter posts for what we humans love, hate, think, believe, feel, and wish! Spend thirty seconds with this real world “wish radio” and you’ll be pulled in to the stories that unfold in front of you. Some want a toy. Some want to stop fighting with someone. Some want a friend.

Many interesting ideas and people come together to make We Feel Fine and Twistori, and few of use are sure what to do with this information. At the least it shows more of the internet’s fascinating possibilities. At the most it is a glimpse into the collective human psyche expressed through the cloud. What if we had a wish radio for our students? Their parents? What can we educators do with these online radios? I wish I had a crystal ball…