To indulge his obsession and distract himself from work, Seward, senior 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"), 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?