According to marketing director Raj Bhandari (left), for Zip Internet, kiosk companies have been working with unsustainable business models.
Wrong.
Zip puts together a self-sustaining package up-front. Advertisers pay from $300 a month for an on-screen button that links users to their website. For $1600 a month, Zip provides a kiosk using the company’s logo. Zip provides free public access but only to advertiser content. Their coin-operated kiosk also provides fee-based surfing at $2 for 15 minutes.
Wait a minute. If someone is willing to pay, say, $600/month for a kiosk with advertising and a hot button, wouldn’t that pay the cost for “free” wireless hot spots?
Armed with a $2500 advertising contract upfront (for 6 months), plus another $500 for “hot buttons”, expenses might be covered. Free Community LANs like Personal Telco, NYC Wireless and commercial “hot spot” operators like Boingo and Starbucks will serve an increasing number of wireless PDAs and laptops.
Jacksonville Florida provides “free” internet Kiosks in their WizZone. They use 802.11b connecting to anyone to the Internet free of charge. The WizZone (FAQ) also has kiosks in economic development areas to deliver community information.
One of the larger commercial operations is Apunix and TravelCenters of America. The largest TravelCenter network in the US, they have deployed 160 Mandrake Linux-based Kiosks for their members. They’ve reported trouble-free operation.
End Point Communications added Pronto Networks’ Hotspot system, to its existing Internet kiosks. Pronto Networks handles all the credit card processing, billing, roaming. EndPoint’s Internet kiosks incorporate bill changers and credit card readers and generally cost around a buck for 10 minutes. Touchscreen systems can cost from $700 to over $100,000. Future vending machines may incorporate internet connectivity.
“Simply providing an internet access terminal and then getting the coins out of it is not going to work,” he claimed. Furthermore, kiosk providers assumed site owners would be willing to pay for installation costs.
Boston’s CityKi (right) provides free Internet Kiosks for access to Travel and Transit Information, Financial Services, Government, Community, Email, Health, Products, and Small Business info.
How do you build an inexpensive Kiosk? You might start with a Linux device like a a $200 Walmart Linux PC. Next add a $250 15″ flat screen monitor and an Infrared or Capacitive touch frame, maybe a protected keyboard and open source Kiosk or Jukebox software. A $999 one-piece Gateway or iMac has the form-factor. Emacspeak is a speech interface for Linux that allows visually impaired users to interact independently and with the computer. It works with DECtalk. Dragon PDsay is a PocketPC application that adds voice control and speech capabilities to your Pocket PC. ScanSoft has human-sounding text-to-speech and voice recognition software for PCs. The audio can drive a virtual host.
Tom’s Hardware reviews Mini PCs (right) and Micro PCs like the VIA box and the Jadetec Micro PC which might run off USB 2.0 DiskOnKey by M-Systems. Oregon-based, ViewTouch has a wireless kiosk using GNUProject’s free software and a small VIA multi-media platform. Belnet uses it with a Colubris Controller and Airpath Wireless.
The simplest route is probably a Linux Tablet or Tablet PC. It incorporates touch-screen and wireless in one unit. Mount it on a wall and surround it with a poster or elwire art. A DSL or Cable Modem could feed a Pronto Hotspot gateway, Boingo, Fatport, or Sputnik, for billing or access control. A webpad could display multi-media ads. That might provide the revenue stream for “free” internet kiosks. Embedded XP will be in wireless settops and PVRs.
An Intel Media Center ($600) with a 42″ Plasma monitor ($3500) and a Matisse Touch Frame ($1500) might play Music Videos On Demand for a buck. That could generate over $1000/month.
A tactile graphic display (right) allows a person to feel a succession of images. About 3,600 small pins can be raised in any pattern, and then locked into place to hold the pattern for reading. The displays are expected to cost around $2,000, much less than most Braille readers. Natural Language Input/Output can be packaged in a human form – or any form. Wrap kinetic art around a mike and speaker.
AskJeeves.com allows users to type in queries as full sentences. Brainhat software can analyze natural voice – English for example – and respond to it in real-time. Speech recognition combined with speech synthesis can carry on verbal conversations. ZabaWare.com can chat with you – live – over the web using an artificial intelligence program.
How do you manage hundreds of kiosks? The Linux-based FireCast ClientCenter is a complete, web-based solution for managing networks of interactive kiosks. Designed to complement kiosks running Linux-based FireCast OS, it allows you to change content, view usage statistics, create advertising campaigns, and modify the appearance of your interactive kiosks from any web-enabled computer. The FireCast software suite is the first packaged Linux-based solution for kiosks, and a complete solution for building and managing public information terminals. FireCast can be installed on standard PC hardware without any prior knowledge of Linux.
NetNearU powers more than 1,200 Internet-access locations. Their TRACKOS system monitors the network and handles end-user billing. ADTRACKOS even allows providers to assign ads to a specific system or groups of systems.
- Kiosk Magazine
- Kiosk.com
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Kioskcom.com
- Kiosks.org
- Kiosk Marketplace
- Elo Touch
- ieKiosk.com
- CarrollTouch IR Frames
- Kineticsusa
- iekiosk.com
- Arral.com
- Info Touch
- IBM Kiosk
- Kiosk How To
- Livewire Kiosk
- Site Kiosk
- Outdoor Kiosks
- Diskless Linux Kiosks
- Mozilla Kiosk
- Webpoint Kiosk
- Wearable Communicating Costumes
Top Ten Reasons Why Kiosk Projects Fail
- Lack of a detailed business plan (kiosk does not fit into the business strategy)
- Lack of intelligent signage (kiosk’s intent is not communicated)
- Lack of robust kiosk management/security software (in order to maximize up-time)
- No management buy-in
- In-store staff lack training on kiosk’s benefits/limitations
- Poor placement on retail floor
- Absence of a good, field service maintenance program
- Content not engaging/too boring
- Too complicated (doesn’t pass the ‘Can My Grandmother Use It?’ test)
- Not architected into retailer’s consumer service strategy. (Never forget: It’s all about service.)
