Endpoints
Overview
Endpoints are where the consumer experience begins. It's where consumers interact with the digital media system.
The Endpoint is the customer-facing digital commerce interface of a MOD System. Whether you use the MOD POD, another kiosk system, or a standard PC, MOD delivers a thorough and scalable solution for promoting and selling content. And, it can process and deliver digital media through multiple fulfillment and payment channels.
With MOD Systems, Endpoints are critical media portals with programming and playback technology, including:
- Media search, browse, and discovery capabilities
- Integrated media player
- Streaming music samples
- Product features
- Video, music video, movies (trailers and features), and game demos
- Flexible digital rights management schemes
- Shopping cart integration
Customers select and purchase music from Endpoint interfaces tailored to fit your business and marketing needs. For example, regions in the MOD System network can host instore listening stations where customers use touchscreen LCD displays to select music. You also can implement the Endpoint as a wireless fulfillment platform.
Using MOD System Endpoint technology, you can sell digital content anywhere. Examples of Endpoint implementation include white label web sites, retail- or hot spot-hosted web sites, on-demand CD manufacturers, and mobile PCs.
Buy and Sell Content
Choose from among multiple custom-made Endpoint types to host your centralized digital commerce solution. Options include kiosks, mobile phones, web interfaces, and portable devices.
Tailored to your brand, the intuitive Endpoint interface offers value and convenience to your customers. They can shop, preview, play, purchase, and store selections from a library of more than a million titles.
The Endpoint interface attracts traffic by displaying enticing editorial features. For example, a store might promote a local music event by showcasing an artist's music at Endpoint stations. You also can present marketing or advertising content locally or across an entire MOD network.
Other ways to shape Endpoint commerce include:
- Branded web links
- Promotional offers
- Loyalty and reward programs
- Identity management
- Special bundles or discounts
- Publishing
- Branded compilation CDs
- Integrated product bundles (digital media package with event tickets)
- Digital signage
- Album art
- Attract loops
- Transactional and payment support
Customers can connect to the Endpoint wirelessly or by using a USB interface. Selected content can be burned to a CD or downloaded to a portable device. Endpoint integration accommodates multiple fulfillment and payment options.
Search, Browse, and Discover
Search, browse, and discovery capabilities enable customers to find what they need quickly and easily.
Branded and scaled to your business model, the self-service Endpoint user experience is vibrant and informative.
It includes:
- A simple web-based interface
- Popular content organized into genres
- Browsing by subcategory (for example, new releases or local music)
- Editorial features and content recommendations
- Media library search by title, genre, keyword, and other metadata
Other media discovery features include streaming music samples, shopping cart integration, and playback on any device accessible by a computer. Endpoints also support secure delivery of promotional and paid-for downloads.
An integrated media player lets customers sample tracks or view trailers. All media in the MOD System inventory is available to sample at Endpoint stations or by using a portable device.
User identity is always protected. Single sign-on capabilities allow customers to register once and use any Endpoint in the MOD System network.
Manage Digital Rights
MOD Systems uses enhanced digital rights management (DRM) strategies that give your customers a seamless content acquisition experience at the Endpoint. This approach allows digital music buyers to exercise their rights to paid content while protecting the content sources, publishers, and aggregators from illegal distribution.
You choose the Endpoint digital rights solutions that best fits your business model. Typically, rights management is designed to prevent file sharing and limit the number of CD burns. You can employ other strategies that serve your market, including:
- Time expiration on permission to play
- Limited play count
- Limits on saving streaming music
- Copy limits
- Subscription passes for access control
- Custom purchasing options (for example, pay per view, rental, try before you buy, and distance learning)
- Expiration dates
- Transfer rights
- Affiliate rights
All tracks are encoded and encrypted for secure distribution using the latest digital rights management technologies. Customers can buy, store, and access their digital collections at any time.
Process Customer Purchases
To satisfy customer purchases, the Endpoint serves as a shopping cart, a fulfillment service, and a wallet. Customers can choose to buy digital content using any of a variety of fulfillment, payment, and DRM options.
Endpoint customers can fulfill content by burning CDs or by downloading (by wired or wireless means) to portable devices. They can select individual tracks or entire albums, as well as rearrange song order, create custom mixes, and provide original artwork, titles, and liner notes. The MOD System always delivers content in the right format.
When a CD is burned, fulfillment includes the physical CD, the DRM content, a case, and a printed sleeve with art and track listings. Downloading content to a portable device streamlines media sales because customers can buy as much content as they can fit on their hard drives.
Endpoints give customers real-time feedback regarding burn or download status. For in-store implementation, an overhead plasma screen tracks all burn jobs. Behind the scenes, the MOD System processes payment, encodes and delivers content, clears rights, and pays royalties and revenue shares.
The Endpoint interface steps users through the purchase process. Customers can opt-in to register and receive offers, loyalty points, and discounts. Or they can do accountless checkouts for rapid and anonymous shopping.
Registration also allows customers to store account information and participate in loyalty programs (wish lists, for example), and provides an opportunity for data aggregating to shape future business.
The MOD System can use multiple payment sources, including:
- Shopping carts
- Credit cards
- Micropayments
- Custom currencies (for example, loyalty points or digital cash)
- Affinity cards
- Gift certificates and gift cards
- Point-of-sale integration
- Carrier billing
- Integrated with your customer management systems
- Existing or third-party billing systems
The Endpoint interface can serve as a purchase point (offering credit card swiping or barcode scanning) or the payment transaction can be diverted to cashiers using printed barcodes. Digital rights and receipts for every transaction are stored across all connected devices.
- Buy and Sell Content
- Search, Browse and Discover
- Manage Digital Rights
- Process Customer Purchases