September 25, 2004
The Samsung 'Experience'
Samsung unveiled its new high-tech showroom Wednesday to a select group of media and analysts. Located in New York's swanky Time Warner Center, the "Samsung Experience" follows in the footsteps of Sony's popular Style stores, located in New York and San Francisco.
"According to MIT Media Center Director Nicholas Negroponte, who was digitally beamed into the launch event via video tape, Samsung's new showroom focuses on device convergence and personal convergence. Negroponte envisioned a world where devices do multiduty, morphing into digital Swiss Army knives of voice, music, video, home security and more.
But it's more than just a touchy-feely geek paradise. Samsung hopes to entice tourists to visit the store by offering to loan out its hard-disk video cameras. By simply plunking down a credit card, visitors can borrow a camera for a few days to record their New York experiences. Samsung also offers kiosks where, after they return the cameras, visitors can burn videos onto DVD to take home. "
The store also offers MP3 downloads via the Napster service, and free ring-tone downloads to cell phones. "It's all about the digital lifestyle now and in the future", said Samsung's Electronics America CEO DJ Oh.
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