Business Opportunities Weblog

IBM Patent Means Your TV Remote Will Twitter Too

By on August 31, 2009 in Ideas


Fast Company:

It’s only a matter of time before someone releases a dedicated gadget for Tweeting. And now an IBM patent has surfaced implying that soon your TV remote control will do your microblogging for you.

The network-enabled smart remote control would send out a digital message to initiate a blog post whenever you choose to watch a TV show.

Because your interface with the remote is pretty limited due to its form factor, and because you are probably more interested in watching the show than sending out Tweets, the system’s strength is automation.

IBM is trying to push this debate onto social nets via the most convenient device–the remote you’ve just used to switch channels. But, of course, it’s not really as fluffily altruistic as all that: It’s actually all about generating buzz about what’s on TV by driving up the viewer interaction…and that will push up viewing figures and thus potential revenue.

Whether it’s neat, crazy, or whether it’ll actually be used if it ever makes its way into a real device is anyone’s guess.

But it’s one of the strongest indicators yet that social networking and your devices are going to marry up in ways you’ll be surprised by.

Photo by romexico.

television twitter

Rich Whittle has added 6,226 posts to Business Opportunities Weblog.

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  • http://wahm.business-opportunities.biz Angela Shupe

    I love Twitter as much as the next person, but I don’t think I’d want my TV actions posted on my account. Imagine if you follow someone who is a channel surfer… that would be a lot of posts. Some things just shouldn’t tweet and the TV remote is one of them.

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