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Interactive Kiosk Excellence Awards: Travel, hospitality or entertainment

From music downloads to pay-per-use e-services, the winners of best travel, hospitality or entertainment kiosks offered applications to make life easier (and more entertaining), whether you're traveling across the country or just across town.

October 5, 2004

Editor's note: The KioskCom Interactive Kiosk Excellence Awards honor, recognize and promote the best interactive self-service kiosk implementations over the past year. The 2004 awards honored excellence in 11 different categories. This is another in an ongoing series of profiles on winners and runners-up in each category.

Public access kiosks for music downloads

In the age of high-speed Internet access, fast food and movies on demand, why should buying your favorite songs be any different? The award-winning Surf, Burn and Run software and BurnASong kiosks from Touch N Surf can give end users music on demand in places as varied as supermarkets and airports. The Surf, Burn and Run software and BurnASong kiosk won the award for Best Kiosk Application for Travel, Hospitality or Entertainment at KioskCom 2004 held last spring. Shervin Rashti, CTO of Touch N Surf, said of winning, "To be recognized in the industry for all the hard work and dedication we put into it (the application) was very heartwarming for us. Clearly our experience in the self-service marketplace is instrumental in getting us where we are today."

Through its BurnASong application, Touch N Surf allows users to search for music from 500,000 tracks, choose the songs they want, and burn directly onto a custom-printed CD. The CD is dispensed from the front of the kiosk. Rashti noted that the recent death of Ray Charles illustrated the functionality of the BurnASong kiosks. Music retailers could not keep Ray Charles' music in stock shortly after his death. By using the Surf, Burn and Run software and BurnASong kiosks, fans could quickly and easily customize their own Ray Charles music CDs.

Touch N Surf's award-winning BurnASong kiosk.

The kiosk application is targeted to anyone who wants to burn music but does not have the know-how or infrastructure available to do so. Rashti's company wants to revolutionize verticals that don't typically sell music, such as grocery stores.

Along with its pay-per-use Web surfing technology, Touch N Surf offers interactive concierge services hosting various businesses, from dining to attractions and entertainment. Touch N Surf provides interactive kiosk solutions for many types of applications including hospitality, travel, entertainment, retail and more. Touch N Surf provides turnkey solutions featuring customizable software and versatile hardware designs.

Touch N Surf's 552H line of kiosks offers a secondary LCD monitor above the unit to display commercial advertising. The concierge station enables users to call advertisers or print information with a single touch. The 552H line comes standard with a 15" LCD touchscreen, CPU-Intel Celeron 1.7 GHz Processor, 256 MB SDRAM, 20 GB hard drive, water/vandal-resistant keyboard, touch pad mouse, card reader and bill acceptor. Optional components include a 110 mm thermal printer, 8 inch thermal printer, a stainless steel vandal/spill-proof keyboard and more.

Rashti predicts that by the third quarter of 2005, entertainment kiosks will evolve to include the downloading and burning of movies and games. While the technology is in place, it is licensing agreements that have slowed down this process. Kiosks such as BurnASong allow retailers to offer their customers more merchandise (CDs, movies, games) without taking up additional shelf space.

Pay-per-use Internet access

Kiosk Information Systems was the runner-up in the category of Best Kiosk Application for Travel, Hospitality or Entertainment for its Shibby-branded kiosk in use at the Denver International Airport. For Tom Weaver, vice president of sales and marketing for KIS, the Shibby kiosk was a success on many levels. "It's been very successful and profitable for us," said Weaver of the 32 kiosks now in use.

While the kiosks provide users with pay-per-use Internet access and wireless bill pay, they also provide KIS with a learning experience. Once the kiosks were deployed,

[Shibby has] been very successful and profitable for us. - Tom Weaver, VP sales and marketing, KIS

KIS studied everything about them. BOX "We did it to learn," explained Weaver. Basically, the company wanted to learn what to expect from an ROI standpoint, the importance of signage, what drives users to the kiosks and how kiosk location affects usage. BOX The Shibby kiosks, while successful, were never meant to be mass produced. KIS is using what it learned to strengthen its role as a consultant in the industry. The company is a leader in the design and manufacture of indoor and outdoor kiosks, public Internet stations and other electronic self-service terminals. KIS customers include a range of corporate clients including McDonalds, Citibank, IBM, Disney, Borders and Mercedes Benz, as well as many government agencies and universities.

Info Touch Technologies distributes its automated self-serve bill pay service at the Shibby kiosks at the Denver International Airport. The kiosks are co-owned and operated by KIS and RHMES Communications. Powered by Info Touch's Surfnet Premiere software, the kiosks enable airport employees and air travelers to pay their Cricket wireless bills in cash and/or credit card. Project stakeholders derive revenues from the convenience fees paid by consumers to pay their Cricket bills.

Info Touch Technologies provides software and personal financial services through secure kiosk networks. Surfnet is Info Touch's trademarked technology for the delivery of e-services, including bill payment, wireless Internet access, maps and directions, money transfer, PIN dispensing for prepaid products and services, electronic coupons, video/text/photo e-mail and general Web-browsing.

[Editor's note: Info Touch Technologies became Tio Networks in April 2006.]

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