© Menno E. Aartsen / BellAtlantic Corporation 1998
Valhalla, NY, January 26, 1998
Having observed Reading Table use and operation overa period of four days, from January 17, 1998, through January20, 1998, I present my conclusions below. This document represents my personal opinion, and does not indicate endorsement or recommendations by or on behalf of the Bell Atlantic Corporation or any of its subsidiaries. This report is solely concerned with the ReadingTable prototype as installed by the Society for Old and New Media (Maatschappij voor Oude en Nieuwe Media) at De Waag in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
It is my understanding that the current business strategy of Naturalobjects B.V., the Netherlands registered company created to productize the Reading Table product, is not leading to the desired result. In cases like these, when capital and salesforce have already attempted to create a market for a product, a safe strategy, as evinced by many product market failures, is to cut any losses, and reposition the product. I will therefore not dwell on current and past strategy
. Upon analyzing the installation, I found two main issues:
Users of the free Internet facility converge on De Waag from opening time. Even before regular customers of the Caféare present, Reading Table users are already on the premises (actually waiting for the Café to open!), and a queue of people waiting to use the installation forms immediately. These users all consume beverages and some consume food. The Reading Table is occupied from opening until closing time, continuously, seven days a week.
It is therefore clear that the Reading Table installation at De Waag shows a successful product, much along the lines of the Hotmail product as I describe it in my talk in De Waag on January 19, 1998: it is a product that generates considerable consumer interest without revenues being expected for this particular installation (a "showcase" installation).
There are clearly three ways in which this installation might reasonably be expected to generate revenues:
As item 3) is difficult to quantify without considerable usage research, I will confine my recommendations to items 1) and 2).
No formal usage surveys have been done on either of the items 1) and 2). I would suggest that creating a separate charge code in the Café's Point Of Sale system, allowing consumption by both users and waiting users to be tracked continuously, is necessary. Over a minimum of one month, the revenuestream can now be measured, and conclusions drawn about the Caférevenue stream generated directly by the installation. If the data is available, this revenue stream should be compared to data from before the Reading Table was installed. While, clearly, the traditional European concept of the reading table in itself generates revenues, the electronic Reading Table enhances this concept by adding the ability to communicate with others to reading in a public space.
Before this is done, however, consumption space at the installation must be maximized, to obtain best possible data - i.e., all eight positions at the table must be fitted with an Internet terminal (up from the current four), and management must ensure that all positions are maintained every day, so that all eight terminals are available at all times. This is necessary to obtain proper measurements with respect to revenue per square meter of floor space - remember that installation of the table in a commercial setting will normally reduce the amount of floorspace available to served tables or other revenue generating furniture. Additional to this, a survey must be commissioned to capture data on the users of the installation, while data should also be collected about the actual usage of the installation, such as URLs accessed, error rate, transaction types, etc. It would probably also be a good idea to restrict the time slot each user can access a terminal, to, say, half an hour, with activation being done using a free access code available from restaurant staff.
At the same time, the installation must be fitted with its own separate and measurable Internet feed, preferably from a commercial provider. This will allow the true cost of Internet usage of the installation to be measured, a cost that can nowbe offset against revenues. This feed must therefore not have too great a bandwidth - usage must be comfortably fast, but slow enough to encourage ongoing sales of consumables. It is conceivable that an Internet access provider might be interested in providing this access free of charge, under the "research" nomer, but it would be better to have the Café undertake to leasethe bandwidth - it is, after all, currently taking revenues generated from the installation.
Data from both items 1) and 2), above, can now be used, together with the accrued cost of the device itself, and the cost of maintenance, to arrive at a model that would be usable to forecast the actual cost of running the device in a commercial setting, and to forecast possible revenues, in different models, from wholly self-supporting to subsidized installation. One could think of leasing the installation to proprietors or managers of commercial space, with many purposes, from increasing consumer traffic to actual charging for a seat at the table. Charged Internet access is already being commercially made available in certain consumer outlets in the USA, such as copy shops, with considerable success. It is clear that, for instance, the resale of data communications bandwidth, with the Reading Table provided free of charge, but on a maintenance contract, might represent considerable revenues, over time, assuming resale of telecommunications is now possible under European Law.
The way in which information is presented, on the Reading Table, seems to certainly serve its purpose, and it is not within the scope of this report to critique this presentation. It simply works. It would probably be prudent to replace both keyboard and touchpad with models that are both spill-proof, and easily replaced - those models are available in the marketplace, from manufacturers that specialize in ruggedized peripheral equipment. Keyboards with built-in touchpads are equally available, today. In itself, the Reading Table could be used as a showcase for the latest Liquid Crystal Display technology, something laptop and display manufacturers could be interested in subsidizing.
It is clear that the current marketing documentation does little justice to the Reading Table - in particular, it makes no attempt at showing the heavy use of the existing installation at De Waag. It would probably be effective to prepare a promotional video tape of its use at that location, and in any printed material, emphasize the applicability of the Reading Table in existing settings. I would also emphasize the fact that, from a corner location,the Reading Table eventually came to occupy "center stage" in De Waag. Another tack might be that existing providers of Internet service, such as America Online or CompuServe, could be intererested in utilizing the Reading Table as a showcase for their access services.
I firmly believe that the next product should be an Internet access device in "standard" commercial furniture - one could think of a desk with standard built-in Internet device, restaurant tables with an Internet device for each seat, and Internet devices in bar surfaces. The consumer should be able to find an Internet access device at their elbow, in almost any setting. Another possible development would be a variant of the installation with built-in (pay) telephones, to enable collaborative Internet computing. If so desired, this could mean an ISDN feed per terminal, allowing data and voice over the same line, or the use of Internet telephony, as a further showcase for this technology.
The Reading Table, as installed at De Waag, must strenuously be considered a commercial consumer product, and all sales efforts should be concentrated in this direction. Attempts to engender cultural interests will not generate significant revenues. There is currently considerable emphasis on the trendiness of accessing the Internet, and it seems reasonable to assume that a device like the Reading Table can be used to access that trend. It is clear that the bulk of revenues, where Internet access is concerned, is taken by the providers of telecommunications, and marketing efforts should therefore be concentrated in that direction. I have stated before that provision of Internet access by telecommunications companies can only result in their increased profitability. A particular effort could be made to introduce a commercial version of the Reading Table into establishments where people are required to spend long periods of time, such as overnight truckstops, labour exchanges (where job ads could be browsed), railway station and airport waiting areas, and even prisons.
The true value of the installation lies in what is demonstrated, in De Waag, on an everyday basis: make Internet access available to the public, and the public will come; all that remains is to isolate and assess the true cost, and the true revenues. Capitalizing on this is an urgent matter, and should be taken in hand immediately, disregarding any previous business plans, and commercial designs, that may have existed for the Reading Table.
The "fancification" of content on the WorldWide Web, at least in the United States, has shown that public paid Internet / Web usage is concentrated in three main categories:
While the Reading Table will predominantly cater to those sections of the public that cannot (yet) afford a computer or Internet account, it must be realized that this is a dwindling resource, and that efforts must be made to add value to the product, to ensure its long time survival. Already, possession of a networked personal computer is an admission requirement for all colleges in the United States, a trend that simply means almost every young adult will own a computer within a few years.