Now Yahoo! has decided to do the same; but instead of burying jars in their backyard, the search engine giant will store multimedia submissions from individuals around the globe - making it the world's first digital capsule, as well as the largest ever in history.
For thirty days - from the 10th of October to the 8th of November - Yahoo! will accept personal photographs, videos, music, art, poems, prayers, ideas and thoughts from people around the world, and will then 'weave' all of the contributions into a single digital piece for preservation.
Yahoo! hopes to compile the most extensive collection of 'snapshots' to represent and celebrate culture in 2006. The project will also be a means through which current and future generations can understand and reflect upon how we are living and progressing.
Jerry Yang, co-founder and chief of Yahoo!, stated:
"We want [people] to represent their culture and show us what's important to them by participating in this historic event. It will be fascinating to see what people submit as part of this 2006 snapshot, which will be shared with generations to come."
Once the capsule is sealed on the 8th of November, it will be donated to the Smithsonian Institution Folkways Recordings and the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico for preservation and sharing with future generations. But it seems that even a digitised project cannot stand in the way of certain traditions; a copy of the capsule will be buried at the Yahoo! campus in Sunnyvale, California, where it will remain until 2020 - Yahoo!'s 25th anniversary.
To celebrate the capsule, Yahoo! will project selected contents onto the 216-foot tall Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico - a symbolic UNESCO site chosen for the organisation's role in the preservation of ancient culture. The contents will then be beamed from the monument into space through a digitised light, connecting the past, the present, and the universe's potential future to each other. The entire process will be webcast between the 25th and the 27th of October, and the capsule will also be featured on twenty-five Yahoo! homepages around the world.
In addition, participants will have the chance to choose from a list of global charities to which they would like Yahoo! to contribute a donation. These organisations include: the World Wildlife Fund, the International Refugee Committee, Grammen Bank, the Global Fund/One.org, UNICEF, the International Child Art Foundation, and Seeds of Peace.
While the Yahoo! time capsule will undoubtedly be the "largest time capsule ever made in history", it's bound to be much more; it will be a historic preservation of the thoughts, hopes, and dreams not only of individuals across the globe, but of an era. It will be a document of life on Earth in 2006.
Participate in Yahoo!'s time capsule project by visiting http://timecapsule.yahoo.com / .
