Nate Lanxon
Nate Lanxon is CNET UK's Senior Editor of News and Features, and covers every aspect of technology for Crave. He also enjoys popular-science books, obscure Japanese animation and plays 'technical metal' on the drums, whatever that is.
Tuesday 8 September 2009, 6:25pm
Twitter coming to Sonos
"See you at our stand tomorrow? Have something I want to show you."
That was a message I received from Fiede Schillmoeller -- European PR for Sonos -- on Twitter, while on the site complaining about my IFA hotel. Appropriately then, what he wanted to show me was a brand new Twitter-related Sonos update.
By the end of the year, the company plans to roll out an update to its new CR200 controller that lets it update your Twitter status to tell your followers what you're currently listening to.
"Oh Heavens above!" I screeched to Fiede in the Sonos press booth. "Are those miniature bags of Haribo Goldbären for journalists?" There were a couple of hundred of them. Happily, he confirmed they were for our consumption.
Munching through several I cried, "Oh Heavens above! This Twitter thing, will it bombard my feed every time one of the people I follow listens to the next song on an album?"
It won't. After the update there'll be a button in the controller's Info menu that says 'Post to Twitter...' Up pops a text-entry box with the artist and track name of the song you're listening to pre-written, along with some text along the lines of "I'm listening to (whatever) on my Sonos." Then hit Post.
On the one hand it seems like the biggest win of this feature is Sonos having its name tweeted a lot. It could also be really irritating for your followers. But as 90 per cent of people on Twitter are morons who don't care about spamming their followers, it'll probably be something many Sonos users end up using and appreciating.
Looking for to it or dreading it? Have your say in the comments.
Articles by Nate Lanxon
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