Internet of Toys: An e-Pet Overview and Proposed Innovative Social Toy Service Platform

Abstract

Web 2.0 and Internet of Things (IoT) has becoming popular in the last decade. This paper firstly focuses on the survey of required IT technologies in e-Pets. Without concerning the issues on mechanical components and sculpture designs, we examine the evolution path and rough taxonomy of current ePets products. With the explosion of Internet of Thing and Web 2.0 technologies, we propose the brain-new idea of “Internet of Toys” which is a kind of social companion for Internet users. From this viewpoint, we give some innovative Social Toy Service design strategies. We cooperate with Jing’s agent and apply Jing’s portrait as the pilot of Social Toy. Then we implement the social services and manufacture one thousand pieces of Jing’s MP3 dolls and they were sold out in two weeks. The owners are able to obtain Jing’s first-hand information through the proposed innovative Social Toy Service Platform. In the nearly future, the other individual personage of Social Toys and related social services can be applied into such market expectantly.