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Okay, this has been out for a while, but Microsoft produced a video laying out their vision of the future. I am saving for a fridge that suggests recipes based on what is on its shelves…all without opening the door. Actually, I can’t wait to see what Scott’s future fridge brain comes up when faced with a few legacy eggs, 1/73rd of a bag of shredded mozzarella. a celery stalk you could tie a knot with, and a Corona.
You’re in an app store, you see an app that looks pretty neat, so you download and install it. You soon realize that its practically useless to you because while it may have thousands of users, the other half that the app is built for is non-existent.
Let’s take a look at OpenTable, a mature mobile app which allows you to make restaurant reservations via your mobile phone. I load it up, it chooses my location by default (or you can enter one) and then I wait for it to list restaurants near me.
I await my results and I get… one restaurant! There is only one restaurant in this city that utilizes this mobile app, so unless I’m in Baltimore, Wash DC or some other major metropolitan area (and I’m sure there are plenty of great places not using this), I have no use for this great app!
With that said, I was pretty excited when I found this app called TabbedOut that lets you open and pay tabs through your phone. Sweet! But then reality sunk in when I clicked on the Locations link on their website and realized that its not even available in my area. Fair enough, start somewhere and grow the app and user-base, I get that. The problem is, however, that even if it was available here, I am not confident that many restaurateurs would use it in their business. That is a real shame, because its an app that I think we’d all enjoy using!
Mobile technology and software are growing at a remarkable pace! It’s not a fad, and it’s definitely not going away. I just hope that we don’t have to wait too long for everyone else to get on-board to welcome it, embrace it and utilize it.
That’s my gentle rant for the day.
We recently launched a redesigned website for Stealth Concealment, a leader in cell and wireless antenna concealment products, services and design/build strategies. Along with a new logo, supplied by Amy Reed with Helium, and updated content from Dale Aren with Matrix Marketing, we restructured the site and implemented our newest version of our custom Content Management System (CMS) known as Biscuit CMS. Now, in the days and weeks to come, Biscuit will be there to easily facilitate updates to content, search engine data and titles, images, and more. Thanks again to our Charleston, SC partners, Matrix Marketing and Helium.
I’ve been slacking on my blog duties, so I wanted to try to get back into the swing of things. Instead of doing my own writeup though, I’m going to post an interesting article that I read this morning. Thanks to Cameron at noupe for the great piece.
“We’re approaching the end of 2009, and many people are wondering what the future will bring. While no one can predict for sure what the Internet holds in its future, there are indicators and trends that can point us in the right direction.
A ton of technologies are ripe for further development in the coming few years. Social media and related apps are definitely going to be at the forefront of the Web for a long time. But plenty of other technologies are on the verge of becoming mainstream, either because of more social acceptance or because of advancements in hardware and applications. Read on for 15 predictions about the future of the Web.”
This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post.
I wanted to learn more about Chipotle’s online ordering system, so I did a little research and found an article from May 13, 2009 on Nation’s Restaurant News titled “Chipotle turns curses of online ordering into blessings”. Check it out if you have time.
This got me to thinking — why, in 2009, does this seem like such a difficult task for restaurants? The web has been mainstream for quite some time now and the technology is available, but many restaurants don’t seem to be utilizing those capabilities to benefit their business. It’s all the same — about us, our menu, location. Thanks for the info, but users expect more! We want to USE your site!
And that’s just the online ordering side of things. Let’s consider reservations.
By using a web application like OpenTable, you can streamline the entire process so that your online reservations go right into the terminal you’re using at the restaurant. If your Point-Of-Sale system doesn’t allow that, no big deal, just develop a custom app that works for you and your customers. I should also mention that OpenTable also has iPhone, Palm (webOS) and Blackberry mobile apps, as well. Yeah, OpenTable is nice, but there’s a catch. The restaurant needs to use it in order for me to use it too!
Today we’re all running the same rat race. There never seems to be enough time in the day to do everything that we need to do and we don’t always have “time” to pick up the phone and make a call. Or we think about it and put it off until later.
By making your services more convenient for your customers, you open the doors for repeat customers and new ones, as well. Who wouldn’t want that?
