What you need to know about the new direct marketing guidance note
Nadine Mather and Chloë Loubser
Try first Twitter-activated sampling machine in Cape Town
Until 22 June 2012, Capetonians can watch what is described as the world's first Twitter-activated sampling machine, BEV, issue BOS Ice Tea. The whirling, bleeping, buzzing ice tea-vending robot, made her debut appearance at the 2012 Design Indaba, where she spent her time refreshing and amusing delegates and the public.
Originally triggered using tokens and rigged with speakers and cameras to show her inner workings, BEV has recently been tweaked to respond to Tweets. She now delivers ice tea whenever a tweet is posted with her unique hashtag.
Find BEV at Wembley Square, Cape Town, next to Sinn's restaurant, where she will be "in residence" until Friday 22 June. During the launch period, BOS will keep track of the Tweets and select spot prizewinners for those who make use of the hashtag.
BOS' digital agency, Cow Africa, worked closely with UK-based social media agency, RAAK, to realise the Twitter integration.
How it works
The sampling machine connects to the Twitter Streaming API and registers the configured hashtag as a filter. All tweets containing the hashtag on the entire Twitter network are then streamed to the sampling machine. It then checks every Tweet's location settings and compares it with its own location boundaries, also configurable. When a Tweet is found to be within the boundaries, a drink is dispensed and the machine deactivates itself for a configurable number of seconds. During this time, the screen name field of the Tweet is displayed on the LED display, alternated every 5 seconds by the amount of seconds left before the machine becomes active again.
Follow @BOS or like on Facebook.com/bosicetea.
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