WiFi + Cash micropayments = POPSpot™

It's been said the McDonald's isn't really in the food business. They're in the real estate business. McDonald's owns prime real estate in locations all over the globe. This observation inspired us to think about POPSpot™ in 2004.

The Coca-Cola Company has over 50,000 soda vending machines in the US alone. And just about anything you want can be had at a vending machine in Japan. Wherever a machine lives, and whatever it sells, the housing has been designed to be break-in and tamper resistant – a perfect place to put expensive Internet routers if you can squeeze one in. Actually, we know you can squeeze one in because we designed a proprietary mounting kit for 3G/4G WiFi backhauls that uses the metal housing of the machine as a high-gain antenna. The kit even works in ATM's, as UK customers already know.

"POPSpot™ lets vending machine and ATM operators further monetize their valuable real estate footprint while enable sub-$1.00 Web payments – a long-standing wishlist item for merchants and online shoppers."

Hardware wizardry is one thing. But the real intent of the POPspot framework is to enable WiFi surfers near a vending machine to feed their cash into the unit for sodas, goods and/or promo codes that can be used to buy things online. Micro-payments in particular are in our sites here. How many more iTunes purchases would happen if kids in a college meeting space could pop a $1 bill into the nearby vending machine that's giving them free, less-restricted WiFi than their school and then use the dispensed promo code on the iTunes store? And how many aggregated users could come in through the gateway homepage that the vending machine or ATM operator owns – before they even arrive at their normal Google or Facebook homepage.

We're happy to give a more complete pitch to vending machine and network operators in the U.S. or overseas. Please contact us and we'll be happy to share more detailed parts of the framework and expected ROI measurements.

An overview of the POPSpot™ framework

This screenshot is from the POPshot™ brochure, available for download in the right column of this Web page.