An alert on the Eurodogtraining blog led me to news of a new product announcement from Mattel: Puppy Tweets, a device that allows your dog to send tweets via a collar tag. The tag responds to noise and motion and sends one of several tweets in response to your dog’s activity (or lack thereof.) Details on how the device works were a little sparse, apparently the collar device sends data on sound and motion to a USB sensor mounted on your computer, and you leave your dog’s Twitter account signed in while you’re out. I find it similar in concept to the sensor-based TweetingBar account which reports on the beer keg’s status in the New York office of digital agency 360i.
Puppy Tweets allows your dog will join a number of other tweeting canines, most of whom have more than a few canned responses to share. The only practical use I can see is to check on a dog with barking issues when left alone. I don’t as a rule follow dog accounts that only tweet items of interest to dogs and I don’t plan on signing up any of my canines when this product launches in the fall. For $29.95 it might be an amusing novelty to some, but for I can’t see it catching on with anyone who is serious about either dogs or Twitter.
