Wireless Local Apps for Bookstores

Physically walking into a bookstore, looking at a magazine stand could translate into the Information Age.

Here is the idea: we could incorporate some “localness” to our existing IT services. We do this simply by utilizing the existing Wifi structure. Wifi already allows connection to a hotspot, and over this, one can serve local HTML pages to any browser w/out any need for larger, outside Internet connectivity. So bookstores have their own hotspots, on which they run their own local apps (with their local server in-house). When a customer is in the bookstore, mags or digital pictures of their covers are displayed in the stand where they usually are. You point your tablet, smartphone, etc. to one of these, take a photo, and the bookstore app that was just served to you which determines the mag, downloads it to your tablet, and you start reading.

All of this happens locally, w/out outisde Internet connectivity, but we are utilizing Internet tech. Time you spent reading could be tallied, and some payment scheme can be worked out between customer and the “bookstore”. Tablets could be customer’s or ones that belong to the bookstore. When customer steps out, s/he is outside the range of the local Wifi zone. The app stops working.

Why such a system? Paper based solutions are dying, but walking into a store, browsing, looking at things still has value. It’s a chance to walk out, walk around, read through some stuff, and maybe even socialize. This action is not currently monetized.

There are lots of opportunities, lifestyle actions like this that are ripe for monetization. Such locality aware apps can be a boon for bookstores, coffeeshops, even supermarkets. Location awareness has already produced some successful apps such as Foursquare. The approach outlined above is even more local, it is in a sense “hyperlocal”, with zero central servers.