Peter Duke | What Medium does the Message Want?

As Web Director for Virgin Entertainment Group, I produced and directed the creation of the Virgin Megastore Digital Preview System. The system is a web-based implementation that allows customers the ability to scan 250,000 CD titles and 11,000 DVD movie trailers. The system consists of 400 touch screen kiosks distributed among 20+ Virgin Megastores. In a data center, the engine consists of a web server and two database servers. One database for display data and another for the search engine. All data for the system is licensed from a third-party data provider, and streaming content is served from an edge-delivery streaming data provider.

Initial production of a prototype was completed in a few weeks by a very small team consisting of a single database/web developer, an art director and a front-end developer. The original platform was Windows XP, Internet Explorer 6 and Windows Media Player 8. The choice of platform allowed the team to create a very small application (26k) that eliminated the operating system interfaces to the end user, and tied in the bar code scanner. The engine was developed as a private web site, using standard web development techniques, with the exception that there was no need to waste time supporting other platforms.

First versions included only “Scan” functionality. The assumption was that if a customer already had the product in their hand, there was a better chance of impacting a sale. Soon, “Browse” and “Search” were brought online and added. Cash register data from the merchandise management system was tied into the reporting on the system. This allowed management to analyze “Impacted Sales” (% of total receipts scanned) and scan-to-buy (% of scanned items purchased). Managers can analyze the data by time, store, and product.

The operating system was migrated to Windows XP embedded for deployment, saving both licensing costs and operational costs. The embedded operating system installer fits conveniently on a USB key chain drive that allows all stores to have an inexpensive backup image and installer in-house. Another online application also monitors and distributes upgraded software over the network to every kiosk in the system in off hours.

Bill Gates liked the idea enough to include it in the Windows XP launch.