Bach Seat

Updated 11/30/2011 – The BusinessInsider called Puppy Tweets one of the 10 Stupid Gadgets That We Can’t Believe Exist. Sometimes BI needs to lighten up.

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In 1993, the New Yorker declared, “On the Internet, no one knows you are a dog.” Now your dog can be on social media. Toymaker Mattel (MAT) has developed a way for your pooch to have his own site on Twitter. Fido can now send you the usual 140 characters tweets. These messages are reportedly the same brief comments about his doggies activities that humans post on social media network Twitter.

According to an article in Psychology Today, by Stanley Coren, psychologists have beenstudying the human-canine bond. They  have long understood that dogs improve our lives. Dogs do this by providing a social presence. Humans interact with dogs in much the same way that they interact with other people, or at least with children. We talk to our dogs, and their presence relieves feelings of loneliness. Research suggests that this is why people who live alone, especially seniors, are much less likely to become clinically depressed if they have a dog as a pet.

Puppy Tweets make it possible for Internet-connected owners to benefit from social contact with their dogs. The social media device has two parts. The first is a USB receiver which connects to a computer. The second part is a sensor, which looks like a big pink or blue dog tag. The tag has a microphone to pick up any sounds the dog makes and a motion sensor that detects movement and acceleration as Fido goes about its daily activities. Based on the sound and motion readings the programming then analyzes makes a guess about what the dog is doing and at random intervals tweets about Spot’s activities. Mattel claims that it can detect 500 different activities and then send a clever tweet that updates Fido’s Twitter page.

The article explains that after a session of fast movements and turns there might be a Tweet like, “It’s not the catching of the tail, it’s the chase.” A short period of moderate movement but no acceleration might result in the message “Guess what I’m licking right now.” A bout of barking might yield the message, “I bark because I miss you – there, now hurry home.” There is even a tweet to show that Spot is sleeping.  A Mattel representative told the author  that the degree of processing of sounds and activities was “not very high-powered.” According to the Mattel representative Puppy Tweets, “determines if sounds are coming in, and how much movement there is, and then selects from a set of candidate messages. So if you get a tweet saying that he is chasing a squirrel, he might actually be chasing a cat, running to the door, or digging a hole.”

The Tweets are not totally random according to the article. The Mattel rep continued, “The device is paying attention to the sound and movements to some degree. However, its accuracy should not be an issue. Look at it this way, several times each day the dog’s owner will get a message posted that the dog is doing something. Whether the tweet reflects what is actually going on at the moment or not, it gives his owner the feeling that the dog is connected to him or somehow near to him, and his loving owner then thinks about his dog for a moment or two. This makes the person feel good, and loved, even if it is more of an illusion than reality. That’s what toys are supposed to do – make people feel good and happy even if it is just for a short time and even if they are merely based on fantasy.”

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This product gives Mattel a unique entry into the social media market. It also capitalizes on the emerging trend of machine-to-machine computing. Puppy Tweets also opens new opportunities to develop canine content filtering software and parental control applications to check who Fido is tweeting with “Hey is there an app for that?”

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.