This Could Go Very Wrong: London Eye to Change Colours Based on Positive or Negative Olympic Tweets

Sometimes you shouldn’t place faith in the general public, especially when it comes to technologies like Twitter. We’ve seen abandoned Twitter marketing campaigns, like McDonalds or Rogers, due to overwhelming negative support by the Twitter-using public. The London landmark, the London Eye (that big wheel thingy) will light up depending on positive or negative tweets on Twitter about the London 2012 Summer Olympics (via Slash Gear). Given the fact that London had the wettest June in history might not bode too well for the Olympics, so expect negative comments galore. That, and you can’t buy fries (“chips”) in any stands except McDonalds, since they are a sponsor. Yup, ridiculous.

Starting at 9:00pm local time for each day of the Olympics and Paralympics, you can tweet with the hashtag #Energy2012 and impact how the London Eye shines. There is some fancy algorithm that likely ignores the tweets themselves and picks the prettiest colour patterns. “Oh, a Union Jack – again!” The number of positive comments reflects how much the London Eye itself will glow. So, when only 10% are positive tweets, there won’t be much glow. Prepare for darkness, London – that’s when the vampires come, too!