I have mixed feelings about writing on the topic ahead because of the marketing commercialism that's clearly part and parcel of it. However, I can't help but wonder whether -- just maybe -- we might see something more happen, or whether we might be able to make more of it than it is. If so, I'd be remiss not drawing it to your attention.

Back in 2001, Microsoft created The Game (also known as The Beast) to promote the Spielberg movie AI. As such, that game was pure commercialism too. An alternate realty game (shortened to ARG), The Game exceeded all expectations, it was a fingerpost to what the social Net was going to mean, and it also made evident the worldwide appetite for games among even the not-a-traditional-gamer audience. I know a number of the Puppetmasters from my first life in gaming, having worked a long time with people like Jordan Weisman and Pete Fenlon and Daniel Carver. I know The Game was expected to go on far longer than it did. The intense interest in and drive to unravel the mysteries, by the sheer numbers of players involved, meant that all the designers were madly working just to stay one step ahead of the thundering herd of players coming after them, solving puzzles in hours or minutes that they expected would take far longer.

Today, the hot buzzword is "cloud computing." (Buzzphrase?) You can read about it here or watch this video (from the Web 2.0 Expo last year) to hear Tim O'Reilly, Kevin Marks, Matt Mullenweg and others talk about it. On Wednesday, June 24th, Google apps and Virgin America are bringing you the game A Day in the Cloud where the airborne and earthborne alike can participate in their Big Game, an online scavenger hunt. Is this going to be another event like The Game?

Maybe A Day in the Cloud will be incredibly lame. Maybe it is just advertising hype to let people know that Virgin America has in-air wifi; well, they aren't the only airline doing so. And although the event is less than two weeks away, the website is still pretty darn thin.

But a bit of the buzz I'm hearing suggests that, because of the Google apps connection, there will be potential for players to really "get it" about things like GPS, about researching on the web, about Web 2.0, and obviously about cloud computing. After all, games motivate learning in a way that abstract wishes like "I really should find out about X and Y and Z" do not. Given a practical justification to put something to use, you make the time to play with it, to integrate it into your daily life, and figure out what it might be good for instead of waiting to acquire yet another oh-so-rare round tuit.

Cloud computing is affecting how libraries function; indeed, how the world continues to be changing. We need to understand it. We need to be able to convey that understanding to our patrons and customers. We need to grasp that, in many ways, this whole phenomenon is as natural and as invisible as the air itself. And finally, that without it we would suffocate as surely as Priestley's mouse.

So give it a looking over. Maybe you want to play this game yourself. Maybe you want to cobble together a library team, a circle of your customers, and make it an all day event. To be eligible for a prize, players need to be over 18, so maybe you want to make this part of the adults' summer reading program, an opportunity to "Get Creative @ Your Library" that way. I don't see why younger people might not play along and simply be ineligible for prizes, though. It's pretty far afield from what we normally think about when talking gaming in the library, but sometimes the strangest yet coolest things come about when you... game on.