The Economist Copied Our Idea

Our project, IfTheWorldCouldVote.com has been getting a lot of attention on the Internet all over the world. People seem to love the idea. The Economist loves it so much that they decided to copy it. Ok, it's not exactly the same. Their title is What if the whole world could vote. Even the map is the same, with the colours and the statistics and there's no reference or credit to us or our site.

But I've got news for you, Economist. We're living in the age of social media now. You can't get away with this. People will know and people will tell that you're copying our idea. So people, let's make sure everybody knows where the idea came from and where the world can vote. Digg this article, share it with the world, let everybody know.

So what's the count? We've been getting a lot of love from Spain, Poland, Portugal, Brazil, the US, Canada, and Iran, to name a few. All in all, we've got over 60.000 votes from 158 countries the world over. And it's actually quite ... interesting, to see how unanimous the world is. You can draw your own conclusions, but this is what the world looks like:

Vote for the original, the authentic IfTheWorldCouldVote.com and spread the word :)

Hjörtur

To get updates on our project If The World Could Vote, subscribe to my rss feed or sign up for email updates here on the right.

Comments

[Danny Brown]

What a fantastic idea! This is what Web 2.0 is all about, true interaction (and catching sneaky plagiarists!!).

I've cast my vote (Obama) and I'll be sharing this everywhere I can. A blog post seems logical... ;-)

[Jón]

Vertu harður, sendu þeim bréf :)

[grimmlock]

while i feel this is a wonderful idea, and fie upon the economist for stealing it, what if your vote would be for neither? understandably, any other candidates would probably not make it into office, but the fact of the matter is, not everyone in america, or the world, would be happy if either of these two atrocious politicians moved into office. while they may talk about change, the possibility of them actually attempting to enact any of the changes is slim to none. a small example, w and his "signing statements." if you became president, would you give away this power he usurped, where in he can just ignore whatever portions of whatever don't fit his idea of how america should truly be run.

still, a wonderful idea, all in all.

[Molested]

So, Grimmlock - there's always not voting.

[grimmlock]

actually, Molested, when i cast my vote in the primaries this year i felt, for the first time in 12 years (just turned 30 this year), that i had cast a worthwhile vote when i voted for ron paul. while he may have been running for the republican primary, that was only because he knew that there was no chance at all if he were to run as a 3rd party candidate. while i do not agree with either of those two, and i definitely do not like the supposed libertarian candidate this year (bob barr is not a libertarian, unless the LP has no longer become the party of principle [it isn't anymore, just so you know}) i will still find the most liberty minded individual running and cast my vote for them. some may see it as "throwing away" my vote, but in my opinion it is not. i just wish that more people would actually start understanding what true freedom means so we can get away from what has become a two party system full of nothing more than career politicians.

[Steinar Hugi]

A month later, they've only got 10% of the votes we have. I think it's fair to say that they made an attempt to steal or idea but failed =) Hjortur you should offer them to publish our results in their paper instead.

[Hjörtur Smárason]

Hmm, you're right about that. Will do, Steinar.

[DeenaGibbs26]

Different people in every country get the lowest-rate-loans.com from various banks, just because it is easy.