The Bluebird Patch

Happiness is contagious. Help me spread it! I’m a true believer that Happiness is fundamental to human existence. I also believe that online social networks plays a critical role in spreading happiness around the world. A new study that followed a large group of people for 20 years concluded that happiness is more contagious than previously thought. “Your happiness depends not just on your choices and actions, but also on the choices and actions of people you don’t even know who are one, two and three degrees removed from you,” said Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, author of the study, to be published in BMJ, a British journal. If your friend’s friend’s friend becomes happy, that has a bigger impact on you being happy than putting an extra $5,000 in your pocket. People with the most social connections -- friends, spouses, neighbors, relatives -- were also the happiest, the data showed. "Each additional happy person makes you happier," Christakis said. "Imagine tha...

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has launched its first internet-only alternate reality drama. Bluebird AR is a new way of experiencing drama as it unfolds in real-time across the internet. You're invited to engage with this drama, either by involving yourself in the events or watching as they unfold - the level of commitment is entirely up to you. Alternate reality narratives such as Bluebird involve a fictional scenario that occurs and is played out against a backdrop of real world activity. The events and characters in the story are entirely fictional but they interact with reality online, including existing social media spaces and through websites created by the ABC. For more information on alternate reality games (ARG), click here. Why is the ABC doing this? Just as Literature, Radio, Television and Cinema offer well established mediums for drama, Online is reaching a level of maturity as a medium to offer its own compelling stories. But with a new language t...