Mobile Firm Sends Your Tweet Abroad On A Homing Pigeon

Swedish mobile firm Fogg is planning to send out homing pigeons with tweets literally attached to their backs, in a stunt designed to promote its data roaming service, which has one flat rate across borders. The campaign,  by Perfect Fools Stockholm, encourages people to submit tweets via the Fogg Mobile website, choosing which bird will carry it, and in which country they want it released. Once the bird has reached its destination, both the Tweet and the nation that the bird is in will appear on their Twitter page.

Four birds will be sent out from Malmo on June 18th, carrying specially-created "backpacks", to cross Denmark, Germany, Belgium and Holland. The 28g pack (which is superglued onto their feathers) will carry a Fogg SIM card connected to a GSM database which will activate the tweets. It will also hold a GPS tracking device to release location data en route. A University pigeon research unit in Munich worked with Perfect Fools to ensure the birds could carry the technology safely.

Each of the birds (named Hans, Wilma, Jean Claude, and Engeli) will have their own Twitter account, and will "tweet" about their training and experiences on the journey.