Facbook's Tech Vending Machines

Text equivalent: <a href="http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/06/facebooks-vending-machines-a-coke-or-a-keyboard/" rel="nofollow">http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/06/facebooks-vending-mac...</a>

anyone putting 30 second video ads on the internet just doesn't get it. it's not like tv where you have to recapture the viewer's attention -- they're hyper focused on a single place on the screen. i would imagine a 5-7 second "samsung phone X has features Y and Z" ad would be way more effective if only because people would consume it without immediately closing the window.

Princeton's EE department has had such a vending machine for a while. It dispenses various electronic parts for student projects. The cool feature was being able to place an order via a web interface and then enter a code at the machine to collect it, and all your parts would drop at once.

I read the written piece, price tags in the vending machines, cards needed to get new supplies instead of their previous cabinet solution, employees copied on the bills the company picks up for them to so "so they can personally keep track of their usage patterns and corresponding cost to the company". <i>Campos is a strong proponent of employee accountability</i><p>I don't work at one of the "hip" tech companies, even we don't have to jump though bullshit hoops like this or have the company nag us about the bills they pick up. Facebook's going cooperate, man.

I love the way the guy had to take us at great length through how the vending machine actually worked--as if us mere mortals who work at places that aren't tech giants have never bought a Mars bar!

So cool. When I was running a tech department I had a supply cabinet in my office that had the same function. We had spare hard drives, keyboards, mice, batteries, cables (especially USB and display dongles).<p>We also had a good one day turn around on getting new RAM or other supplies.<p>My motto for my team was "It costs me more money to hear you bitch about how slow your computer is than just buy you more RAM or a new one"

That seems great for batteries and power supplies, although I don't see a lot of need there. For keyboards, I'm not interested, none of those keyboards looked great. And for power supplies, especially for mac power supplies, why not just have enough available in general?

I've worked a few places where this would be terrific. Am I the only one who thinks this might be a possible business opportunity?