TweetingSeat Turns Park Bench Into Tweeting Machine

Frank Gruber April 27, 2011 Tweet

Looking to connect a real world object with the digital world, the TweetingSeat has been rolled out to create tweeting, photo sharing park bench experience of its users and the environment in which it is placed. Each time someone sits down on the bench, TweetingSeat uploads an image from two cameras to the Twitter feed. One camera is located on the bench looking at the surrounding space, and another is located nearby looking at the people who use it. It’s like an interactive photo booth in the park.

Currently, TweetingSeat leverages just Twitter and TwitPic to share tweets and photos. I would love to see it also incorporate Foursquare or Gowalla to keep a stream of who’s actually taking a seat at the bench and tweeting that info out as well.

The TweetingSeat was designed by United Kingdom based Product Designer Chris McNicholl. He had this to say:

“TweetingSeat has been created in order to explore the environments in which it is placed and look at the people whom it encounters. The way in which the bench should be used has purposely been left open, allowing people and communities to build their own relationship with it.”

At this point it’s not clear if the TweetingSeat will be rolled out as an actual product but I could see the surveillance aspects of the TweetingSeat being potentially interesting in certain circles for it’s “big brother” characteristics.