Magnet Poetry on a Virtual Fridge

My fridge is currently covered with two Magnetic Poetry sets. My roommate and I are constantly updating the arrangements throughout the day, and whenever anyone comes to our house they put their two cents in. It's a nice way for us all to interact nonverbally. Every time I go for a glass of water I'm surprised by a new combination.

It's crossed my mind more than once that I'd really like all of the poets on the internet to be able to participate in this kind of silent collaboration. As I've talked about before, the iPhone app Touch Poet allows us to make our own 'magnetic poetry' and post it to social networks. But with an interface like that, we don't get to work from the same pool of words.


The other day, my friend and fellow poetry enthusiast Hazel Jennings, showed me a tool that completely solves this issue. It's isnoop.net's Fridge web application, and it's currently in version 3.0. Using Ajax, the fridge allows multiple people to arrange words into poems, and it updates in real time. You can see how many people have participated on the site in the last 30 minutes, which is a nice reminder that it's not just you striving alone. Here's what it looks like:

I couldn't find a ton of information about exactly how this works or what it's origins are, so please leave a comment if you've got any more knowledge about this great simple web app.  All I know is, all of us now get to stand at the same fridge, constantly editing and revising each other's poetic arrangements.