Kyle MacDONALD'S saga of bartering a red paper clip for a small house reads like a cumulative nursery rhyme, along the lines of "This Is the House That Jack Built": He traded a paper clip for a fish-shaped pen, the pen for a doorknob, the doorknob for a camping stove and so on.
In "One Red Paperclip," MacDonald recounts how at 25 he found himself unemployed and living in Montreal, tired of temp work and having his girlfriend pay their rent. While writing cover letters for his résumé, he came up with an idea. As a child, he'd played the game called Bigger and Better, which he describes as a "mash-up between a scavenger hunt and trick-or-treating. You'd start with a small object and go door to door to see if anybody would trade something bigger or better for it."
Resolving to play the ultimate Bigger and Better on the Web, he posted an item on Craig's List in July 2005, offering to trade a paper clip for something that he could eventually swap for a house.
Over the next year, MacDonald made more than a dozen trades, some lucky, some stupid-sounding and some publicity stunts. He swapped the camp stove for a generator, then an "instant party," a snowmobile, a trip to the town of Yahk in British Columbia, a cargo van, a recording contract, a year's rent on a duplex in Phoenix, an afternoon with Alice Cooper, a KISS snow globe, a small role in a Corbin Bernsen movie. In July 2006, he made his final trade, swapping the movie role for a small house in Kipling, Saskatchewan.
His plan attracted considerable media attention, first in Canada, then in the United States and other countries. The blog he wrote about the trades became a popular topic of discussion, especially on Slashdot, Dig and other geek sites. "One Red Paperclip" suggests both the power of the Internet and some of the problems it has spawned.
The widespread and instantaneous connection MacDonald was able to establish with large numbers of people through Craig's List wasn't possible previously: Even 10 years ago, the resources didn't exist. And the notice his quest gained on the Web helped to attract the mainstream media, whose coverage brought him yet more attention -- in which he revels. The result is a new, dubious distinction noted on the back cover of his book, which proclaims MacDonald to be "one of the most recognized Internet celebrities on the planet." Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan may want to hire new Web designers.
