Runme.org is a software art repository, launched in January 2003. It is an open, moderated database to which people are welcome to submit projects they consider to be interesting examples of software art. Software art is an intersection of two almost non-overlapping realms: software and art. It has a different meaning and aura in each. Software art gets its lifeblood and its techniques from living software culture and represents approaches and strategies similar to those used in the art world. Software culture lives on the Internet and is often presented through special sites called software repositories. Art is traditionally presented in festivals and exhibitions. Software art on the one hand brings software culture into the art field, but on the other hand it extends art beyond institutions. The aim of Runme.org is to create an exchange interface for artists and programmers to work towards a contextualization of this new form of cultural activity. Runme.org welcomes projects regardless of the date and context of their creation. The repository is happy to host different kinds of projects - ranging from found, anonymous software art to famous projects by established artists and programmers. Runme.org is structured in two major ways: taxonomically/rationally (the category list on the left side of the home page) and intuitively (the keyword cloud on the right). Periodically, a changing group of "experts" selects and reviews their favourite works submitted to Runme.org. Though Runme.org partly grew from the Read_me 1.2 festival, it is an autonomous repository upon which the festival is now based. The second edition of Read_Me festival took place in Helsinki in May 2003, and the third in Aarhus in August 2004.
Runme.org was developed by Amy Alexander, Florian Cramer, Matthew Fuller, Olga Goriunova, Thomax Kaulmann, Alex McLean, Pit Schultz, Alexei Shulgin, and The Yes Men. Hans Bernhard and Alessandro Ludovico joined the expert team in summer 2003. Runme.org website is conceptualised and administrated by Amy Alexander, Olga Goriunova, Alex McLean and Alexei Shulgin. The site is developed by Alex McLean.