Alright, I’m going to have to go ahead and say that this beer-and-Twitter mashup is the single coolest one I’ve seen yet! It came across the Twitosphere today today 360i, a digital marketing agency in New York, has created a system that causes their office beer tap — I know, I want one too — to send a tweet every time a pour is completed. The account, known as Tweeting Bar (@tweetingbar), even let’s the office (and its followers) know when the keg needs to be replaced!
Tweeting Bar came about after the agency’s Creative Team began researching sensor technologies which would have the ability to tweet. They started talking to the folks at Keg-Meter and worked with them to create a custom product that is able to send flow data via a serial port.
The company shares some more details about the project on their blog:
“Within days, we had the product in hand. In studying the device, Mike and 360i Tech VP Tim Driscoll learned how its sensor “felt” the beer being sucked down the hose. After adjusting the meter sensitivity so the numbers on the LED readout accurately reflected the change in volume, they then ensured the signals were being transferred down the serial cable. Mike and Tim wired the apparatus up to the serial port, drew another 12-ounces and hoped for the best.
It worked! Characters appeared on the laptop screen each time a draft was drawn. The tap could now make noise, even if he didn’t have anything to say yet. Each time Mike and Tim pulled a draft, new random characters appeared on the screen. Though the tap’s lexicon was painfully limited, this was the consistency – and promise – they’d hoped to see. It was now time to configure the server and software.”
See how the Tweeting Bar works in the demo YouTube video:
Beside the obvious awesomeness factor of a Tweeting keg to big Twitter fans such as yours truly, this invention also begs the question of the potential usefulness of the application — if you can call it that — to bars, pubs and breweries to use from a marketing angle. I wonder how long it will be before 360i releases a version to the public and how many pubs will gobble it up. Definitely keep your eyes peeled.
