A House For One Red Paperclip

Tim_F writes to mention the news that Kyle MacDonald (the guy trying to trade a red paperclip for a house) has succeeded in his quest. His recently traded a KISS Snowglobe in exchange for one afternoon with Alice Cooper. He in turn traded the snowglobe to an enthusiastic snowglobe collector, for a role in a movie. From the article: "Now, the town of Kipling, Sask., located about two hours east of Regina with a population of 1,100, has offered MacDonald a farmhouse in exchange for the role in the movie. MacDonald and his girlfriend will fly to the town next Wednesday. 'We are going to show them the house, give them the keys to the house and give them the key to the town and just have some fun,' said Pat Jackson, mayor of Kipling."

Comments

Kyle MacDonald!

[RyanFenton]

Announcer: Kyle MacDonald - come on down! You've been selected to be the latest contestant on...

Audience: Gimmicky Human Interest Story! [Wild Applause]

Announcer: That's right! You've managed to amuse us with your heartwarming tale of despiration. You managed to stumble into a kindly corporate sponsor for your story of using ebay, and gotten that radio station to softball you into a whole lot of pain advertisement! And now, latching onto the story, everyone and their brother are selling the hype to eachother that a paper clip can buy a house!

Audience: Paper clip! Paper clip! [Wild Applause]

Announcer: It's a great day for you, and a wonderful day to sell shiney new hopes in pretty packaging! That's right folks - the system works - you too can become mega-rich if you're just clever enough to get a radio station to give you prizes!

Audience: Rich! Rich! Rich! [Wild Applause]

Amazing.

[NexFlamma]

This story, more than anything else I've seen, shows the amazing powers of the internet. Simply by connecting so many people in almost-real-time, stuff like this has become a possibility. Admittedly, I'm sure many of the trades only came about via the publicity and novelty of the idea, but before we had the world literally at our fingertips, such ideas wouldn't have been even remotely possible.

I applaud this guy simply for trying something new and having it work out for him nicely.

Re:Amazing.

[AuMatar]

Most of them were. I see very few of the trades that weren't based on novelty or publicity. Paperclip for a pen- novelty. Pen for doorknob- novelty. THe stove and generator were legit, but the snowmobile was pure publicity. So was the trip to Yahk- although props for being so canny in setting it up. The truck was publicity. The recording contract was novelty. The years rent and the afternoon with Alice Cooper were legit (well, Alice probably liked the publicity but I could buy him doing it for an employee without it- it could happen). The snowglobe was legit but the movie role and house were pure publicity as well.

Basicly he got lucky, got some publicity, and made a few good moves with that publicity to make it happen. Don't expect it to work for you.

Re:Amazing.

[Illserve]

Not that the internet isn't useful, changed the world, etc, but this guy's gimmick is only indicative of the power of the internet to spread fads. It might work a second time for someone else, and possibly even a third time, but this kind of thing is basically a one-trick pony.

It's the pet rock all over again.

And that guy got more than a crummy farmhouse for his gimmick.

Re:Slashdot story?

[Aranth Brainfire]

Because it's quirky, and appeals to geek culture.

Sorry for spamming up your Slashdot, I know all of these stories can be hard to follow all the time.

Kipling land value

[mh101]

To give you all an idea of how much land is worth... Current for sale in or around Kipling:

• 320 acres of farmland for $100,000 CAD
• 1200 sq. ft. home in town, for $54,000 CAD

And here's a complete map of Kipling.

But how much did he spend?

[Kuukai]

If this guy was flying from Montreal to Vancouver to Seattle and so forth, staying in hotels, paying for internet access, and eating food, for a whole year, how much money did he start out with?! I mean, is it not reasonable to assume that if he actually worked he could have easily bought a house on the Canadian countryside withing a year?