History - 1991 & 1999 Zdnet - Pyramid to Popsicle
I'm in process of cataloging the publications over the years that I have written for, commented in or whatever. My big outlet right now is AVIXA. They have been wonderful people to work with and let me "do my thing".
My first "appearance" was actually in a book by John Dvorak in 1991. I was working for Northgate and we (me and Stan Kalisher) loaned them some "high end" PCs (386-33s).
My first "big break" was Denise Culver article in ZDnet in 1999. The Dow was a little over 10,000 back then. That was back when I started and kiosks.org (for a couple of years before I ran it out on Visi in Minnesota. I ended up selling kiosks.org to Networld in 2003 or therabouts (and helped start kioskmarketplace).
The ZDnet article was focused on payphones. BT was going internet kiosks in a big way. We had CAIS which also known as AtcomInfo. They were the 900 pound gorilla in the internet kiosk space. There was a fairly good line from me regarding internet kiosks in NYC -- "Who knows whether someone will develop a kiosk that could survive on the streets of New York City?
Back then "smart city" wasn't part of the tech vernacular.
And it still remains to be seen if the LinkNYC smart city stations survive.
Couple of notes on the article. Denise Culver was great. She mentions $250. It's $5000 now for sponsor level. I mention 100K a month in "hits" (aka requests). Last 30 days we did 3,000,000. Those ratios are actually pretty close.
In any case kicking things off here is the ZDnet interview from 1999.
By Denise Culver, Special to Inter@ctive Week,
August 9, 1999 10:03 AM ET
If you have questions - any questions at all - about lnternet kiosks, you need look no further than Kiosks.org, a Web site dedicated to interactive pay stations.
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Run by Craig Keefner and his wife Carolynn, the Web site contains a wealth of kiosk news, trends,
advertisements and information. Keefner started Kiosks.org four years ago, after successfully running an lnternet news group on the same subject. Kiosks.org members - primarily companies that make lnternet kiosks or their components - pony up $250 for the privilege of submitting information.
The site enables Keefner, who works full-time as a programmer for Northwest Airlines, to serve as a middleman between Kiosks.org members and prospective customers. Keefner says the site now gets about 100,000 hits per month, a number that steadily has grown since July 1996, when the site received only 5,400 hits per month.
"That's one of the reasons we had to start charging people to be on the site," Keefner says. "lt got to the point that I had to have some way to judge the credibility of the companies that were submitting information."
Keefner says his interest in Net kiosks dates back to 1993, when he worked with retailer Dayton Hudson as a programmer. One of his jobs there was to write the operating system for the Club Wedd interactive kiosks found in Target stores.
Although Keefner no longer writes such programming for kiosk companies, he tracks kiosk trends through the Web site. ln the past several months, he has received increasing numbers of requests from pay phone service .?
"lt's a sexy topic," Keefner says. "Pay phone providers already have the relationships with the retailers and the contracts for pay phones at those locations, so kiosks are a natural extension."
Keefner says he receives numerous requests for information on kiosk-pay phone combinations, as well as kiosks that are bulletproof or weatherproof.
"A lot of pay phone providers are realizing that they have an advantage in the lnternet kiosk race, and they're looking at all the possibilities," he says. "Who knows whether someone will develop a kiosk that could survive on the streets of New York City? Who knows whether people will sit and talk on a pay phone if it's connected to an lnternet kiosk that will let them surf or play games while they're talking? The point is that pay phone providers are thinking through the possibilities.
It'll probably take about 12 months for us to start seeing the results of all the thinking, but it's definitely going to happen.
Meanwhile here is starting index
CTO | KHAITE | Founder: Netkey Retail Software (acquired by NCR Corp).
2 年Thanks Craig!