Kiosk Enables In-Store E-Book Sales

Booksellers and librarians attending BookExpo America in New York City this week will no doubt be stopping by the OverDrive booth to take a peek at its new Media Station kiosk. The device is essentially a touchscreen, mounted on a wall or standalone base, on which consumers can preview e-books and MP3 audiobooks and then buy or borrow them on the spot.

As OverDrive’s press release describes it, the Media Station is intended to provide an in-store—or in-library—way for people to browse e-book titles in the same location where they browse print books. OverDrive has one million titles available, mostly trade, from hundreds of publishers. Consumers can view or hear the first chapter of any title.

For more than a decade, OverDrive has offered a solution for online direct sales of e-books and digital content, but about a year ago, shortly after buying the Booki.sh cloud e-book platform from Australia’s Inventive Labs, it announced plans to develop the Media Station kiosk.

At that time, the Media Station was touted as a device intended for libraries. It was piloted at a public library near OverDrive’s Cleveland, OH, headquarters. However, it may have more potential for bookstores that already have e-commerce in place, as the kiosk can be integrated with the store’s web solution.

Blockbuster pilots movie rentals via SD cards

An article from Fast Company says that Blockbuster is piloting new movie rental kiosks that will allow users to rent movies via SD cards. The SD cards can be used with mobile phones, computers, TV’s, or other devices that include SD readers. The movie must be viewed within 30 days of purchase and once a consumer has begun watching the movie it will be available for 48 hours. That article notes that Blockbuster hopes that the higher quality videos will target consumers that watch movies via online streaming but it is questionable if those consumers will be willing to travel to the store. The pilot is occurring at select stores in Dallas, Seattle, and Portland.

Digital Happenings

Here, again this week, are some links to articles that you may find interesting:

• The New York Times recently featured an article about the textbook rental service, Chegg.com. The article notes that the business is growing rapidly and credits “word of mouth” publicity for their recent growth.
• A recent article says that Amazon plans to launch the Kindle in the UK before Christmas 2009.
• An interesting new website called FriendShopper is designed to simulate in-store shopping by providing users with a real-time social online shopping experience.
• An article from Campus Technology discusses how Texas A&M is successfully using social media marketing tactics to engage students.
• An article from E-Commerce Times questions if the new lower price of the Kindle 2 will be enough to attract customers in the down economy. A posting from the Bits Blog notes that the new price is a result of the decreasing cost to manufacture the device and the increase in volume of Kindle sales.
• An interesting article from Fast Company discusses how the Redbox kiosks are succeeding with the “power of in-between technology.”

Apple files patent for an iTunes kiosk

It seems that Apple also has plans to enter the entertainment kiosk space. A recent posting on AppleInsider says that Apple has filed a patent for a kiosk that will enable iPod and iPhone users to download content to their devices while traveling or in locations where there is no Wi-Fi connectivity. The patent indicates that unlike other entertainment kiosks, the iTunes kiosk will not require users to pair their media devices to the kiosk which can cause excessive wear on the media device connector. Instead the kiosk will be able to detect the presence of the media device and will establish a wireless data channel with the device. Apple plans to place these kiosks in “virtually any location such as an airport, hotel, stadium, train station, shopping mall, stores, planes, ships, public transportation vehicles, and the like." Consumers will be able to download the latest hit songs and movie releases as well as, any audio and video available in the iTunes store.

Movie rental kiosks on the rise

An article from The Dallas Morning News reports that Blockbuster plans to roll out 10,000 Blockbuster Express video machines nationwide by the end of the year. This move will put Blockbuster in direct competition with industry leader, Redbox, which currently operates more than 14,000 DVD rental kiosks at major chain stores. Blockbuster chief executive, Jim Keyes hopes that the business evolves into digital download kiosks rather than dispensing physical copies stored in the machine. Additionally, although Netflix posted positive profits for its first quarter, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is concerned about the competition from kiosks. Hastings said that many customers cite the kiosks $1 a day new releases as their reason for canceling their subscriptions. However, new releases only account for one third of Netflix’s total rentals so kiosks can only compete to that extent for the time being.

Innovative Kiosks

There was an interesting article in the New York Times this week about new kiosks being developed by Intel that could eventually be placed in retail locations. The kiosks feature large touch screens with software that can identify customers, recall their purchase history, suggest specials or additional items to coordinate with their new purchases, and even let customers try out virtual clothing and cosmetics. The idea behind the kiosks is that it will provide customers with more product information as well as customer reviews, in other words, the information that they would see if they were purchasing online. Joe Jensen, general manager of the embedded-computing division at Intel explained the kiosks by saying, “The prototypes are a vehicle for showing the direction we see retailers needing to move.” As retail locations begin to change their models to provide an online shopping experience in store, how will consumer’s expectations change? Or perhaps more importantly, what will students come to expect when they shop in the college store?

GameFly partners with Barnes & Noble to test game rental kiosks in college stores

A recent article explains that Gamefly, an online video game rental service, has partnered with Barnes & Noble to test out game rental kiosks in college stores. The kiosks will provide students with the opportunity to rent hundreds of popular games for various gaming systems without a return date or late fees. The first kiosk was launched last Wednesday at the Texas Tech campus store and GameFly plans to install similar machines in stores across the country.

The Future of Media Consumption

An interesting article from The Wall Street Journal, discusses a variety of new innovations that will soon change the way we watch movies. In the future we will be able to send movies wirelessly from iPhones to TV’s, talk with others via the TV screen while watching the same movie, and experience advanced digital projection and 3-D movies at the theater. Another feature that will become more advanced is movie distribution via kiosks. Companies such as Blockbuster and MOD Systems are in the process of scheduling and conducting pilots while our own NACS Media Solutions/Polar Frog Digital pilots are set to begin in the first two weeks of January. The idea behind all of the kiosk solutions is to offer convenience and choice to the customer by allowing them to choose a movie from a selection of thousands of titles and make it available to them in minutes. While Blockbuster is currently testing out kiosks that burn movies onto Archos portable movie players and then hook up to TV’s, MOD Systems is working on kiosks that burn movies to SD cards that can be used with select TV’s and DVD players. As noted in a previous posting and press release the NACS Media Solutions/Polar Frog Digital pilot will place kiosks in college bookstores and allow students to create “Burn to Own” DVDs. During the second phase of implementation, “Burn to Rent” DVDs and a web-based download delivery option will also be available.