Startup’s Newsroom Lights Up With Every Twitter Mention

• Posted August 9, 2012 - Filed in Technology - #Startups  #Technology  #Twitter  #Facebook  #Tech  #success  #www.dentedego.com  #Square 

  8/09/12  3:02pm

   

  Zach Seward, like several of us at Mashable, is qualifiably obsessed with "The Internet Of Things— connected objects that email you when your clothes are dry, or turn on your sprinklers when the temperature gets hot.

  To indulge his obsession and distract himself from work, Seward, social media editor at Quartz, a mobile-first business publication The Atlantic is planning to launch next month,  has engineered a lightbulb that lights up every time someone mentions @quartznews on Twitter.

  “Now, when you interact with us, our newsroom is literally brightened,” Seward explained in a Tumblr post.

  The lightbulb also goes off when Facebook’s share price drops below $20, and every time China wins a medal in the Olympics.

  How’d he do it? The lightbulb, per Seward's description, was plugged into a $49 Belkin WeMo Switch which is designed to let users turn appliances on or off from their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch devices. He then used web-based service ifttt  (“if this, then that”), WeMo Switch which allowed Seward to set parameters for the lightbulb: i.e., if someone mentions @quartznews, then the lightbulb lights up.

   

  Pretty neat, right? His project has certainly given us some ideas for our own newsroom.

   

  How about you?

  View source article