Living memory at the cemetery

The funeral industry is catching on with innovations. Recently I attended the funeral of a deceased loved one. I was confronted with an innovation at the funeral parlour, where you could rent an apartment for some days to stay with the deceased; shower, tea and coffee included. But the smartest innovation was the trip with a funeral bus; a special coach in which the coffin is put, around which the children can sit. In this case there was a requiem mass celebrated in a church in the centre of a city. As this place was very hard to reach by car and as it was even harder to park a car in the neighbourhood, a bus was chosen for transport from the funeral parlour to the church and later to the crematorium. The bus followed by another coach with mourners drew quite some attention from the shopping public.

But now funeral industry has entered also the digital era. On internet there were already sites, devoted to the memory of a deceased one, and condolences sites. A Dutch funeral service even set up in Second Life. Now the tomb stone industry has discovered the digital era and has designed a tomb with a screen to keep the memory of a loved one alive on the cemetery. The screen, working on sun energy, shows movies and pictures. A security system, consisting of special batteries or a remote control, can activate the screen system for family and relatives.

The idea comes from Mr Henk Rozema, who got the idea when he made a DVD for his 65th anniversary with scanned photographs. He showed this DVD to his family and friends during the celebration, many people present asked a copy of the DVD "for later". This gave Rozema the idea to combine a screen with a tomb stone. Together with a tomb stone constructor Steenhouwerij Rijtink he realised the tomb stone with screen.

This is private narrowcasting on a cemetery. Although movies can be played in the screen, the developers expect that next of kin will produce a series of photographs, covering the life of the deceased. Movies will be too emotional the developers think. Of course a new series of photographs or movies can be loaded in at any time.

This might be a start of a new branch to the funeral industry with programmers, content producers and (remote) system managers.

Blog Posting Number: 771

Tags: narrowcasting

Yes/No/Yes: a free newspaper for PCM, at last maybe

Recently I wrote that there was never a dull moment at PCM. The Dutch newspaper company recently said goodbye to its private investor Apex, who was bought out by the (economic) majority shareholder for some 110 million euro. In the past weeks the publishers and editors have watched the launch of the free tabloid De Pers. PCM could have been a launching partner, but had to cut off collaboration talks with the financier of the new newspaper, Mr Marcel Boekhoorn.

Since the board of directors have declared that CEO Ton aan de Stegge could sty on, he has his hands free to start new projects. The free tabloid is the first one. No word has been said about the RTV project Oasis. But as the company has a load of debts, it might well forget the project. The free tabloid project will have to be paid from the sale to Springer of the health care publisher BSL. The debts will have to be reduced by the sale of other book publishers, unless the board members change their minds.

The name of the free tabloid has already transpired. It will be called De Dag (The Day). This name was recorded as a potential name in 1995 for a site. The free tabloid will be a challenge for PCM. It will have to compete with the free tabloids Metro, Sp!ts and De Pers. Metro and Sp!ts have positioned themselves as newswire newspapers with small new items from news agencies. They have recently gotten competition of De Pers, the free tabloid of the private investor Mr Marcel Boekhoorn. De Pers makes a qualitative difference with Metro and Sp!ts, but will have to prove its economic existence with advertisements. The advantage for the PCM free tabloid to be is that there are already competitors to compare with on the one hand and three national newspapers (NRC Handelsblad, Volkskrant and Trouw) to tap from. It will be interesting to see what the editorial formula of the newspaper will be.

There will be one difference from the beginning as PCM is going into the free tabloid project with the incumbent telecom company KPN. PCM has a lot of content and KPN has a lot of network services, but no content. As far is known at present, KPN will take care of the electronic distribution on internet, mobile and the narrowcasting networks. The telco will not be involved in the editorial; this is surprising as the telco has an editorial staff on its Planet Internet service. So far it looks like PCM will handle the editing, ad acquisition, production and distribution of the printed tabloid, while KPN will handle the electronic editions. KPN will not participate financially in the project; KPN can be seen as a client of PCM.

The cross-media combination is interesting in the electronic distribution part. Not one of the PCM newspapers is in the top ten of most visited sites; the KPN site Planet Internet was last year in the eighth place with 18,5 million visitors over the summer quarter in 2006. In penetration figures it reached the thirteenth position. By relaying the free tabloid the visitors’ figures can be upgraded. But the free tabloid will also boost the mobile use. But the distribution through the narrowcasting networks will give KPN advantages. Presently KPN has already narrowcasting services in shops, public areas and in trains. By having content, it will be easier to attract advertisements.

But the companies have not yet signed an agreement. In fact, Mr Scheepbouwer, CEO of KPN, said that the news had left the negotiation table too early. Of course he should have known that he was talking to a company, practising journalism. So after being affirmative to news that PCM would launch a free tabloid and after calling it off, there might be a chance that the free tabloid project maybe called off, maybe continued. As I said before: there is never a dull moment at PCM.

Blog Posting Number: 658

Tags: newspaper, narrowcasting, free tabloid

Connected by broadband, slow in applications (3)

The leisure industry has a lot to gain from broadband. Restaurants need connections to handle the payments by credit or debit cards; they can use mobile devices, which relay orders to the kitchen and they can work on their environment.

The Dutch leisure industry with 40.000comapnies and 300.000 employees has had a bad time since the entry of the euro. It must be said that the leisure industry has taken advantage of this valuta exchange by upgrading the prices. They were very surprised that people noticed this and refused to come. It took some years before the leisure industry won back the trust of the people. Last year the leisure industry did better financially.

However the leisure industry will have to make its big turn still. So far the restaurant, bars, holidays resorts lived on their name, which usually was created by exposure in newspapers and magazines. But now leisure companies will have to move from exposure to experience. Whenever people have enjoyed their dinner at a restaurant or their stay at a holidays resort, it will yield trust and they will tell other people about. This leads to new clients and bookings.

And it is not only the leisure industry which makes a turn from exposure to experience. Also the retail shops realise that they will have to adapt to the future and that they will have to realise the many promises of cyberspace. How many times did you hear presenters tell you about the smart fridges with screen, displaying what should be ordered, what was still left in the fridge and what you could cook with the left-overs in the fridge. I have heard the story since 1996 and I only believe it when I see it in more than five kitchens within a radius of one kilometre.

Of course in this chain the retail shop plays an important role. What can the shop do? The German retail shop chain Metro has produced a look into the near future. Remember it will take a couple of years before new concepts are accepted. As I wrote before in the blog about 30 years online: you might have the technology, but you do not have yet the customer.

The retail shops will have to dive into broadband applications like screens and narrowcasting technology to market their products more precisely. It is interesting to know that 80 percent of the buying decisions are made on the shop floor, while 95 percent of the marketing budgets are used outside on printed or RTV ads. Shop owners should spend the money in screen and content. The screens can inform people, but also be used as a sweet for waiting like in a shop for beds and furniture. The screens will spread an atmosphere and seduce the shoppers to acquisitions; not just exposure, but experience.

Blog Posting Number 653

Tags: e-leisure, retail, smart fridge, narrowcasting e-leisure, retail, smart fridge, narrowcasting