Meow Mix Hot Keys

So many great products these days start out as lightbulb ideas brought to life by Kickstarter, and pet products are no exception. That trend certainly isn't lost on cat food company Meow Mix, which is harnessing that concept with a new project called Catstarter.

The website — which Adweek reports was conceived by San Francisco ad agency EVB — asks visitors to vote for their favorite of three inventions, and Meow Mix will create the invention that gets the most backers. So basically it's like Kickstarter but free, because you don't have to actually donate your own money. Score!

Here are the three ideas you can vote on right now, in the order of their current popularity:

  • Hot Keys: a cat bed that is shaped like a keyboard and is warmed by your keystrokes on your actual computer keyboard (so you can get work done without your cat insisting on "typing for you," if you know what we mean).
  • #MealMachine: a feeding system for felines that you activate by tweeting.
  • Twister Dish, a food bowl for finicky eaters that funnels kibble from the edges of the bowl into the center, where some picky cats prefer to eat from.

Want to know more about any of these? Each has a short and informative video on the site.

Our favorite function on the site is the section where you can submit your own idea for an invention, which could become the next Catstarter project.

So put your thinking caps on, cat lovers! It's time to invent things that our cats will really appreciate — or, um, at least things they won't completely ignore.