Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: blogging, E3, iPhone, mobile, obama, palm, SMS
From my twitter follows:
1. New Palm Pre: the Palm OS answer to iPhone. Pro’s and cons are listed. One con is the sticky keys (if you have a Centro you know what this means.) These are girl friendly (fingernails), but boys (big hammy fingers) must have tested this and wrote the list.
(Retrieved from above URL)
2. Lynda.com: how-to do all kinds of cool things online. (This is on my blogroll now!)
3. A list of toys and games from E3. E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009) is wrapping up today in Los Angeles at the Convention Center. Go here for a list of new hits:
(Retrieved from URL below.)
4. Pres 2.0: “The State Department project intends to utilize a mobile system to send highlights of Obama’s speech live via SMS [from Cairo, Egypy today] to anyone who registers for them on America.gov.Anybody with a cell phone can register for SMS updates of the speech, no matter the nation in which they reside. One of the goals of the innovative project, according to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, is a broad effort to reach people internationally. On top of the SMS speech highlights, users can add to the conversation by texting back. The State Department will post a swath of user-submitted comments on a separate web page. This is an attempt to engage the global community on a scale we have never seen tried with mobile phones,” (Parr, 2009.) You can find out more by going to Ben Parr’s blog on Mashable at
These are just some little tidbits to get you thinking. Later!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Food Service, GuestBridge, mobile, OpenTable, SMS, Text
I am sure that you have gone to a causal restaurant at 7:00 PM on a Saturday and had to wait for a table. This wait could have been short, maybe 10 minutes, or perhaps as long as 45 minutes. Maybe you went to the bar and had some drinks while you waited, or perhaps you went outside and meandered around the mall or shopping center. But I bet you have all (at some point) gone back to the host stand because you thought they forgot to call you…or because you heard a name called that sounded like yours…or you were just hungry and wanted to be seated. Now imagine that none of these scenarios were necessary.
Say hello to GuestBridge, a software company that has created a “host stand management system” that captures guest information, tracks repeat diners, records birthdays and other important holidays to your repeat diners, personalizes their visit, invites them back to dine again works with other restaurant computer systems and your own website, and pages your guests to come to the host stand to be seated via their own cell phone. No more weird little pagers or hostesses who don’t like to use the intercom system because it sounds funny. This system can also change plotted tables to accommodate large parties and walk-ins, makes the seating more equal to your staff, tracks guest spending and when a party is about to be done eating, paying the check and leaving.
Another less integrated system is readyping, a Chicago based firm which has created software that sends a text message to the guest when their table is ready.
A third system that I found, Queuent, also calls guests on their cell phones when their tables are ready, but has a back-up plan in case the person doesn’t have one; they use the ‘wait here and come back and check in the quoted time period.’ Well, DUH, this is used already, so it’s kind of a no-brainer. However, the FAQ page of this site reminds the establishment owner that Queuent never sells their contact info: “All phone numbers are removed from the system as soon as guests are seated or deleted from the wait list,” (Queuent FAQ, 2009). This may make us all feel safe and our privacy secured, but it doesn’t say much for the ability of the system to track past diners, VIP’s, or any of the other options listed by GuestBridge above.
References:
GuestBridge. (n.d.). “Who We Serve.” Retrieved May 28, 2009 from http://www.guestbridge.com/casualrestaurants.html
Queuent FAQ. (2009). Retrieved May 28, 2009 from http://www.queuent.com/index.asp?view=faq
Readyping. (2009). “About Us.” Retrieved May 28, 2009 from http://www.readyping.com/about-us
