Twitter could play an important role in the Internet of Things, writes Michael Wolf in an article for Forbes. Wolf believes the social media platform could offer a transformative social aspect to IoT connectivity.
Wolf notes that a growing number of connected machines are already using the Twitter API to interact with users, as in the case of a smart vending machine that can only be opened via a user tweet. It’s not a huge stretch to imagine more machines and devices learning to read tweets, and getting better at it, so that one day soon we could have a smart home heating system reading tweets about the weather and adjusting temperature accordingly.
Moreover, devices could be designed with the capability of connecting with Twitter users, allowing tweeps to register those devices and connect them with other registered smart devices. “Imagine, if you will,” Wolf says (and we will), “your favorite sports team tweeting out a color scheme for your connected lights or a watchface for your smartwatch on game day.”
These are interesting ideas, but they also serve to underline the serious privacy concerns that are emerging along with the Internet of Things. As technological advancement brings such hypotheticals into reality, they will surely help to fuel an ongoing debate about how much privacy users will be willing to relinquish for the greater convenience of interconnectivity.
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