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Kiosks deployers seek forum at NACS Show

February 27, 2002

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LAS VEGAS - In a convention center loaded with companies of various sizes seeking a competitive edge in the convenience store industry, kiosk companies continued the elusive search for killer applications at the NACS Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center on Oct. 22.

And with the emphasis on convenience stores at NACS, it was no surprise that the kiosk deployers seeking to raise their profiles were companies offering Internet access, e-mail, and retail sales in locations such as the gas pump, the car wash, and the convenience store.

Two companies exhibiting at NACS - Freeosk Inc. and PointMedia Corp. - are in the process of testing their products before launching widespread deployments.

Freeosk, based in Waltham, Mass., is preparing to deploy 11 Internet and services kiosks at Store24 convenience stores in the Boston area.

"As soon as we do a debugging we'll order another 10 or 15 for our stores," said Bob Gordon, president of both Store24 and Freeosk.

The enclosures, designed and manufactured by Kiosk Information Systems Inc. (KIS), are tall and lean, with two screens. The top screen features a rolling series of advertisements while the lower screen offers a range of services, including Internet and e-mail access. Netkey Inc. and Scala designed the software for the two screens.

The term Freeosk is slightly misleading, as only selected sites, such as MSNBC and Yahoo! will be free of charge. Customers will be charged a fee, currently 20 cents per minute, to access other sites. But Gordon said advertising, not usage fees, will be the primary source of revenue for the company. Gordon said Tropicana, Lance, and Snapple have all signed on as advertisers.

"What the units have to do is sell products," Gordon said. "If they don't sell products, interest wanes."

The kiosk includes a touchscreen, keyboard, mouse, and clicker buttons. Charlie Eichhorn, Netkey business development manager, said the purpose is to offer customers choices in using the kiosk.

"The basic goal is to make it user friendly," Eichhorn said. "You make it user friendly so they can get to where they want to go."

Another company seeking to create a user friendly experience is PointMedia, whose PointTV.net gas pump kiosks are being tested in a Mobil station in New York and a Global station in Connecticut. Four more kiosks are scheduled to join the test program in the next month.

A sturdy black kiosk designed to stand alone alongside the gas pump, PointTV offers updated news from ABC-TV, business news from Bloomberg, SportsTicker live scores and local forecasts from AccuWeather. The left hand side of the screen will feature products customers can order directly at the pump.

PointMedia will install the equipment and maintain the system at each station. The station will receive five percent of merchandise revenue and ten percent of advertising revenue.

PointMedia co-founder and vice president of sales and marketing Seamus Carroll said the merchandise side is expected to fuel the privately held company in the short term.

"We don't anticipate selling ads for the first 18 months to two years," Carroll said. "At the beginning, we expect product sales to drive this."

A company that is moving beyond the trial phase is Nazareth, Pa.-based Innovative Control Systems Inc. Innovative launched its Auto Sentry line of self-service car wash ordering kiosks 2 ½ years ago and have deployed about 150 nationally.

But after making some adjustments to the machine, including moving the door to the front of the unit so it can be built into walls, the company plans to become more aggressive in selling the machine.

"That's one of the reasons we're here," said Innovative director of administrative services Mike Britcher. "Now we're really going to go out and start marketing these things."

Along with deployers such as Freeosk, PointMedia, and Innovative, kiosk manufacturers were also in attendance at NACS. NCR Corp. showcased its Freedom line of ATMs, but highlighted the Freedom 4 as an example of how ATM and kiosk functions can be blended seamlessly.

Standing roughly four feet high, with an oval purple base that slightly resembled a Power Rangers helmet, the Freedom 4 prototype NCR showcased at NACS performs the same functions as a regular ATM, but also offered users mp3 music downloads and Digimon collectible characters. Both functions can be downloaded directly into user devices, such as mp3 players and hand-held devices.

The concept of paying for mp3 files is still foreign to most hard-core music fans spoiled by several years of Napster and other online music-downloading services. Mark Grossi, NCR chief technology officer, acknowledged that it is uncertain how music fans will react to paying for music files.

"The whole industry is struggling with it," Grossi said. "I don't think NCR can influence whether people will be willing to pay for content. What we can give them is secure access to the content."

Other kiosk-related companies that had booths at this year's NACS Show include Marconi Commerce Systems, Sun Microsystems, and Radiant Systems.