Back when I used to work for
Coinstar, no one would have any
idea what they were. However, if I were to say:
"They are those tall green machines with the TV screen inside them. You can take a jar of coins (at this point mime tilting the jar of coins) and dump them in to be counted"
Their faces would light up with an '
Ah-Ha!' response.
Working at Coinstar was great, but I just didn't see the value to our service. I mean, it was like taking reverse interest. (Since the user has to pay between 8-10%)
The Coinstar machines are just part of the overall business plan though...
See, each of the machines is connected via a phone line (and I'm sure eventually a DSL line) to Seattle, Washington, where they dump their data for the day. So, what Coinstar has built is a network in supermarkets across the country that has 6000+ nodes and is capable of distributing all kinds of information, or even consumer goods, since the machines are modular, and new services can be added... like, selling pre-paid debit cards, for example.
They could have used this network in really cool ways. Instead they've chosen a rather boring plan of setting up affinity programs within the chains they are located.
The first step in this is to use some small .com called meals.com to make recipes available to shoppers via the Coinstar Machines. They're also trying to sell some nonsense about giving supermarket customers Internet access through the Kiosk as well.
I don't know what the CEO's been smoking over there... but I want some!