Remember those old tabletop jukebox controllers that allowed you to select tunes without leaving your swell milkshake? [Like the one pictured above?]
McDonald’s has decided to dust of that old idea for the modern age. Engadget reports that the omnipresent burger purveyor has started rolling out, to select franchises, a system of flat panel video monitors that will present content to those in the restaurant during the burger intake. Called MVenue, this content system will be controlled by folks sending text messages to it via mobile phones or via wifi.
This looks like a bad scene out of Back to the Future II, where Marty McFly is transported into a dizzying tech-filled future.
Those folks were onto something in the 1950s. Kids wanted the content. At the time, it was pop hits on 45rpm records. The media moguls’ tabletop jukebox controller facilitated that. MVenue looks to be the logical progression of this. While it is an interesting conduit, as was the controller for the jukebox, its future depends on CONTENT.