Violet push the Nabaztag in the wake of Ugobe's Pleo
Some years a go I bought a white rabbit. He sat on the self and would read RSS from Matt Cutts' blog to me in a human voice.
However, all was not well with my wireless rabbit and Violet the company who made him. Their servers crashed with all the interest. I couldn't log in to customise the bunny. He was trapped in a cycle of sprouting random RSS comments and wiggling his ears.
Throughout the years I tried to fix the situation. No response from Violet's customer care. Fan sites where no help - their owners closing them down, embarrassed by Violet or assuming the project was dead.
In the end we simply turned the bunny off. Random outbursts of speech was a good way to scare burglars off but wrecked the TV watching experience late at night.
At the start of the year I bought theweirdone a Pleo called Splodge instead. Splodge was a hit. He only made cute sounds (even as a watchdog) and trundled around the room.
Rather sadly, Ugobe the company behind Pleo has gone the way of the dinosaurs. It is no more. Although Splodge is still live and well (although wearing a cute red t-shirt now in order to slow the rate at which paint rubs off his skin) I was wondering wh
at the next robotic pet might be...
I was very surprised to get an email from Violet. Not only are Violet still alive but they had noticed Cirque, my bunny, hadn't been active for ages.
I was also very surprised to discover the password recovery on the site worked and I could log in to the system!
The timing made sense. The market, now without Ugobe, was a little more clear and Violet could use this time to promote the wireless rabbit. The Nabaztag is significantly cheaper than the Pleo.
I suspect Violet may even have had a dose of VC funding too. Today my RSS feeds started to carry feedburner ads for the bunny.
However, all was not well with my wireless rabbit and Violet the company who made him. Their servers crashed with all the interest. I couldn't log in to customise the bunny. He was trapped in a cycle of sprouting random RSS comments and wiggling his ears.
Throughout the years I tried to fix the situation. No response from Violet's customer care. Fan sites where no help - their owners closing them down, embarrassed by Violet or assuming the project was dead.
In the end we simply turned the bunny off. Random outbursts of speech was a good way to scare burglars off but wrecked the TV watching experience late at night.
At the start of the year I bought theweirdone a Pleo called Splodge instead. Splodge was a hit. He only made cute sounds (even as a watchdog) and trundled around the room.
Rather sadly, Ugobe the company behind Pleo has gone the way of the dinosaurs. It is no more. Although Splodge is still live and well (although wearing a cute red t-shirt now in order to slow the rate at which paint rubs off his skin) I was wondering wh
at the next robotic pet might be...I was very surprised to get an email from Violet. Not only are Violet still alive but they had noticed Cirque, my bunny, hadn't been active for ages.
I was also very surprised to discover the password recovery on the site worked and I could log in to the system!
The timing made sense. The market, now without Ugobe, was a little more clear and Violet could use this time to promote the wireless rabbit. The Nabaztag is significantly cheaper than the Pleo.
I suspect Violet may even have had a dose of VC funding too. Today my RSS feeds started to carry feedburner ads for the bunny.
