In which we introduce Reykjavík Runs Us, a social media experiment around the Reykjavík Marathon.

So, what’s a marathon?

Here is one definition: A marathon is a bunch of people, running as fast as they can, from the moment a pistol goes off at the starting line, for the 42 km and 195 m it takes them to get to the finish line. (See Illustration 1.)

But a marathon is not just about getting from A to B.

It’s also about everything that happens on the way from A to B.

Marathons take place in cities, and for a lot of people running a marathon is a way to experience a city — a new way to explore a place.

And that’s the idea behind Reykjavík Runs Us.

Last year Íslandsbanki, sponsor of the Reykjavík Marathon since 1997, approached Takk Takk with the idea of creating a project to draw the attention of international runners to the 29th Reykjavík Marathon taking place on 18 August 2012. The result is Reykjavík Runs Us, a social media experiment that will start with a bang (literally) in a few days.

We don’t want to give too much away yet, but the idea with Reykjavík Runs Us is to use the Reykjavík Marathon to take a new look at the city — to use the marathon and everything that’s connected with it to tell a story about Reykjavík over a long period of time with lots of different characters. To explore all those little things that happen and have happened between A and B, not just landmarks and the “must-see” places of tourist guidebooks, but the deeper fabric of a city.

The project will live on several different platforms and involve the participation of lots of different people. It will unfold slowly over the next few months. And like a city, it’s by definition unfinished.

Take a look: Reykjavík Runs Us

Photo by Tyrone Warner

In which a project leaves home.

Two years, three months and six days ago, an old island in the middle of the ocean began using the internet to talk to humans. It was all a part of something very, very serious called Iceland Wants to Be Your Friend, a social media experiment Takk Takk created at the initiative of the good people at the Icelandic Tourist Board.

Since then, using brains and fancy machines, we and some very clever friends of ours have helped Iceland use things like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, email, a blog, Vimeo and Flickr to talk to humans, make friends with them, and maybe get them thinking about visiting it in a flying machine one day.

People have said nice things about Iceland Wants to Be Your Friend. They’ve called it “an object lesson in how to do social media well”, “a lesson in the aesthetic value of consistency, simplicity and friendliness”, “exemplary in terms of the simplicity and finesse of its approach”, “intriguing, engaging and remarkable” and “incredibly well done”. It has been praised for “its consistency over a range of social media channels” and called “absolutely hilarious, genius, and refreshing.”

It was nominated for a Shorty Award and declared the year’s Best Marketing Campaign at the Icelandic Web Awards in 2011. And to our enormous pleasure it made (barely) the Upper East Side of New York Magazine’s Approval Matrix.

If you are one of the people who have been following Iceland Wants to Be Your Friend, we’d like to say this.

Seriously. This has been a lot of fun.

But all things come to an end, and as of today, 22 January 2012, a brand new bunch of clever people is going to help Iceland talk to humans. They work for something very, very serious and important called Promote Iceland, and they have promised to take extra good care of Iceland and its inter-nets.

Time to move on.