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social media for inanimate objects – Hugh McGuire Press "Enter" to skip to content

social media for inanimate objects

Published 2008-02-28 by Hugh

From Infovore:

I’ve written before about how wonderful Twitter can be as a messaging bus for physical objects. The idea of overhearing machines talking about what they’re doing is, to my mind, quite delightful.

So when I found an untapped data source for such an object, I thought it was worth having a poke. Half an hour of scripting later and Tower Bridge was on Twitter. It tells you when it’s opening and closing, what vessel is passing through, and which way that vessel is going. The times are determined by taking the scheduled time for the “lift” and subtracting five minutes for the opening, and adding five minutes for closing – the official site suggests that, at rush hour, lifts should take five minutes to open and close tops.

Follow the Tower Bridge on Twitter.

I don’t know what to think of this, exactly, but it’s kind of neat. I wonder what inanimate object I’d like to hear from in Montreal?

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