Article

Commentary: Why we're writing about more than kiosks

As self-service increasingly means smart phones, tablets and screens, our coverage must evolve.

December 7, 2011

A woman approaches an interactive panel at the end of an aisle in Target. She sees photos of products. She touches one and, after reading more about it, places an order.

Has she used a kiosk or a digital sign?

At a fast food joint on the way home, she waits impatiently in a long line. Soon, to her relief, the woman is approached by an associate who enters the details of her order into an iPad and helps speed her along her way. Was that a kiosk? A mobile device? Both? Neither?

The same ambiguity muddies how we refer to other transactions. For example, when a Starbucks' customer uses her Android phone to pay for a latte, hasn't she in essence used her phone as a kiosk? Isn't the same question relevant for the traveler who checks in for a flight with the same device?

It's not about kiosks anymore. It's not even about digital signs or mobile apps. It's increasingly about disparate technologies that businesses can use  to engage consumers, serve them better and keep them coming back for more.

The observation is not a new one. In the past couple of years, the Digital Signage Association and the Self-Service and Kiosk Association merged to form the Digital Screenmedia Associaiton with the understanding the new group also would serve vendors and deployers of mobile solutions. JD Events bought KioskCom and soon created the co-located The Digital Signage Show. Last year, the show owners did away with the distinction, added a focus on mobile solutions, and rebranded the events as Customer Engagement Technology World.

It's about convergence -- interactive solutions going their own ways while the customer insists that they come together in one place: at the tip of his fingers.

As responsive journalists and publishers, then, it makes sense to apply a similarly unifying approach to our content. We believe that retailers, restaurateurs and others among readership search broadly rather than narrowly, less concerned with finding a particular solution — a kiosk, a tablet, or a digital sign—than finding the bestsolution to captivate the interests of a customer and give him exactly what he wants, when he wants it. We also believe our sponsors and advertisers are best served when we showcase their wares and know-how to the widest possible group of potential clients.

We're not going to change the name of the site. KioskMarketplace has served us and our readers well for a very long time. But now and going forward, readers will see a more holistic approach to the type of tools consumer-driven businesses use to interact with their customers. We'll cover more digital signage, and write considerably more stories about mobile applications. And of course, we'll continue to cover kiosks, with the understanding that self-service has come to mean far more than a touchscreen in a box.

Tweaking thusly our approach to content should give us empathy for the vendors and deployers who deal with such evolution every day. We may not always get it "right" when it comes to what should be covered and what falls outside the lines. But one fact gives us both comfort in the face of that reality and trepidation as well: right now, it's anyone's guess just what exactly it is that "right" means.

The writer is executive editor for NetWorld Alliance, publisher of KioskMarketplace.com