BAKERTWEET
I’m a bit late to this but here’s BakerTweet, a new thing from Poke. It sits in the Albion cafe and when a baker’s pulling something nice out of the oven she can dial up the thing she’s baking, press the button and instantly a tweet fires off to all subscribers (presumably people who like fresh can pastries, who live or work in the area.)
Here’s Albion’s oven tweet that the box produces - Albion’s Oven
Here’s a nice article on the evening Standard site - Evening Standard Article
As new social networky things permeate the web in these faddish waves it’s easy to miss the salient things about them, the things that will ultimately make them pass the test of time. Most tweets are pointless indulgences, that is true, just as bedroom bloggers used to get sited as an example of the vacuousness of the blogging fad. But these fashions that burn very brightly have a purpose hidden behind the tsunami sized wave of exuberance. They get use and interconnections to a critical mass that allow deeper, more lasting applications to emerge. We’ve seen it with bedroom blogging becoming a mature and respected industry, we’ve seen it with Facebook, Myspeace, iPhone etc etc. We’ve seen it with the internet itself.
The reason we bothered making BakerTweet is because it hinges on something very specific about Twitter, something you couldn’t get with anything else. Twitter’s open API’s, the relationship of the follower (subscriber), the real time nature and its near-ubiquity of regular engaged users (for the shoreditch fresh bread loving market at least). All make for a tool with lasting relevance and the potential to make the whole experience richer and more interesting for the business and customer alike. They’re already selling out of things very quickly after the tweets go out which is great for The Albion and great for their customers who come streaming out of the door, already scoffing their warm toasty croissants, muffins and bead.
It’s what technology should be. Something that makes perfect sense, that doesn’t leave you with nagging question of “why would I do that?” You don’t pay more for a fresh croissant than one that’s been sitting around for a few hours, you just need to know when there’s a new batch.
We’re weighing up whether or not to go into proper production on it (I know what it takes to launch a product business so not something to take lightly.) But I think there are so many applications for this stripped down physical interface we’re proposed in BakerTweet