Kellogg’s Tweet Shop: Kellogg’s London promotion for its Special K Cracker Crisps, the Tweet Shop was a 4-day pop-up shop that accepted tweets as payment for snack samples. “Shoppers” were asked to post a review containing the hashtag “#tweetshop.” Once their messages appeared on the store’s LCD screen, customers received a box of the chips. Proving that plenty of people are willing to sell themselves out, the stunt garnered significant participation, with tweets like “Forget Trident Layers, I want to be paid exclusively in Cracker Crisps” and “At the #tweetshop – getting my crisps. For free. In exchange for a tweet. Must be the future.”
BEV Vending Machine: South African beverage company BOS Ice Tea has developed a Twitter-activated vending machine, called BEV, that dispenses a free can of its Rooibos drink when a customer stands in front of it and tweets with the hashtag “#BOSTWEET4T.” An overhead LED screen shows the person’s Twitter handle and a countdown until the "free" can emerges. When the drink is delivered, colored lights blink while a speaker amplifies a robotic voice telling the person to enjoy their beverage. Rigged with a series of microphones and cameras, the conversational machine delivers a series of playful messages for passersby, saying things like “You look thirsty, human. Let me help you.”
PunkMoney: PunkMoney, a twist on peer-to-peer sharing economies, is a platform on which tweeted promises are currency. For example, someone could tweet "@Alice I promise to mow your lawn next week. #PunkMoney @Bob,” after which the vow will appear on the site’s ticker to be redeemed at a later date or transferred to another person. The “#PunkMoney” hashtag identifies and tracks what happens to each promise over time. Creator Eli Gothill, who was partly inspired by OWS grievances, designed the system to be “entirely trust-based, and between peers, so it encourages community. The only way that this money has value is if people trust each other.”
