Credit: Kodomut on Flickr. Some rights reserved.
A network of people interested in investigating matters related to the London Olympics have contributed to the first ever ebook for crowdsourcing platform Help Me Investigate.
The book, written by Help Me Investigate founder Paul Bradshaw and reporter Carol Miers, is based on an investigation by Help Me Investigate the Olympics into the allocation of Olympic torchbearer places.
In recent weeks the platform has been seeking to identify the 8,000 people awarded the honour of carrying the Olympic flame across the UK, with the Guardian earlier this month helping gather responses to Help Me Investigate's list of "mystery torchbearers".
Speaking to Journalism.co.uk, Bradshaw said: "As we started to come towards the end of it we wanted to put together a narrative, a comprehensive analysis of what actually happened."
He added: "We've put together a long-form report which looks at what happened to those 8,000 Olympic torch relay places."
The ebook, called '8,000 Holes' - each torch bears 8,000 holes representing each torchbearer - is around 7,000 words long and was supported by around 25 contributors who engaged in the Help Me Investigate network for the Olympics.
"A lot of these people are people who went through the mystery torchbearers spreadsheet, for example, that we published, some of them are journalists ... another one is a photographer who'd taken a photo of one of the torchbearers.
"... So the network's been quite helpful. A lot of it has been following trails and leads."
This is the first ebook to come out of a Help Me Investigate investigation. It is available for a suggested donation of $0.99, with all proceeds going to the Brittle Bone Society. It can be accessed via computer, iPad, Kindle or other ebook readers.
Bradshaw added that "the ability to publish the book before the relay has even finished" has allowed the platform to "tap into the interest while it's still topical, rather than waiting for traditional publishing schedules".
Last year Bradshaw took Help Me Investigate open-source, and announced plans to establish a network of communities focused on specific areas which could share investigative resources, the Help Me Investigate the Olympics site being an example of one of those communities.
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