A few weeks back we sent some questions to Guido Tamino, who’d come up with the idea of getting people to print stuff on his inkjet printer by sending him simple pictures and text via the internet. What started out as a crowdsourced project about random lives collaborating through the medium of real-time printing descended into a torrent of abusive messages and pictures that would scar your soul for all eternity. Such is the nature of the web. But now, inspired by the Q&A with us, Guido’s back with Print Stuff 2.0.The differences? Well, he’s kept the real-time printing, as this was definitely what was interesting and fun about the project, but he’s added a layer of crowdsourced curation to the process, giving users to vote for what should be printed and what belongs in the trash bin. You still submit a picture in the same way, but instead of it instantly being printed and uploaded to the website’s front page, it will now appear as a thumbnail on the homepage and people can vote on whether they want to see it added to the project or not. It does mean that the printing isn’t quite as immediate as it was previously, and the need to vote adds a sense of commitment and makes the process more prolonged, but it does mean you can separate the nasty images from the genuine submissions.It’s still a project that’s completely in the hands of the internet, for good or ill, but this time the internet gets to censor itself. Maybe the addition of voting will curb the more immature material and allow for the more inspiring submissions to filter through. Either way, it’s in your hands and minds now. Print Stuff is back up and running should you want to vote for, or print, some stuff.
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