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eon8: The Gig is Up

I had actually not heard about this internet phenomenon until it concluded today. If you are not familiar with what this was all about, it's a very interesting story:

Some time ago a suspicious looking site, "http://www.eon8.com" appeared on the internet. It contained little else than a rather ominous-looking countdown that would end today, July 01. People immediately began speculating as to what it could be, and all sorts of theories began to emerge as the little website grew in popularity. Some thought it was a countdown to some kind of terrorist attack, while others thought that it mapped the distribution of various computer viruses, and others still thought it surely had something to do with newest James Bond film in the works, Casino Royale.

It was, in fact, none of these things. Today the big white counter disappered and was replaced with a dramatic "EON 8 DEPLOYED", followed by a link to a new page which contained the truth behind all the mystery. Pasted from a mirror of the actual page:

"As of July 1st, 2006, the E8 Project has completed.
The purpose of this project was to determine the reactions of the internet public to lack of information."

The site's creator revealed himself to be a Floridian; a 23 year-old web designer named Mike. His objective in carrying out the E8 Project was to make the point that, "People take things too seriously and panic over the most trivial things."

Here is the Wikipedia article that explains things in further detail.

And here is the link to the site itself, which has been completely removed and replaced with a list of mirrors through which you can still view eon8.com in most of its former glory.

Note that these links will likely expire in time; who knows what will become of eon8.com itself, and the last time I checked the Wikipedia article was up for deletion.

posted by Dave @ 5:48 PM