World’s first ‘tweeting couch’ unveiled in World Cup piggyback stunt
By Rich Leigh on Saturday, July 12, 2014
South African ISP MWEB has created the world’s first tweeting couch – and is piggybacking on the World Cup to show what it can do.
I’ll (rather lazily: it is Saturday morning) paste their description in to help explain it:
The #MWEBTweetSeat, connected to the internet via WiFi-enabled sensors, allows someone watching TV to automatically send a pre-programmed tweet to comment on whatever they’re watching without having to take their eyes off the screen. The user simply needs to log in to the couch with their Twitter details, pick a cushion with the right sentiment for their emotion, and throw it in the air. A tweet is then sent automatically.
A tweet can be sent when the seat is bounced, too, in something MWEB’s called ‘Cruise Control’, which did make me smile. The seat can also be reprogrammed for other TV shows and live events.
To be fair, the campaign email I received did acknowledge that the idea is ‘a bit of a tongue-in-the-cheek comment on one of the prevailing internet behaviour trends of our era’ (there were 35 million tweets during Germany’s drubbing of Brazil, so I think it’s fair to say the insight is there), but really, it’s a pretty clumsy and unnecessary example of ‘the internet of things’ (simple explanation here) at play. I’m including it because although I sort-of like the campaign premise, I think it could perhaps inspire other better ideas.
BONUS PR EXAMPLE OFF OF THE PAST:
For those without a sad encyclopedic recollection of PR stunts, the tweeting couch is similar to this tweeting bed from 2009, when a best man rigged the bed of newlyweds to tweet whenever they bumped uglies, including automated scoring of the effort and duration.
But that was well observed, well executed, funny and er, five years ago when inanimate objects tweeting was still enough to excite people.
