We all see waiting as a painstaking activity that decreases consumer productivity and morale while hurting customer service and margins. Often times however, the repercussions of waiting are far more unfortunate. Without sharing a commentary on world politics, waiting in line poses serious health and security concerns. In this recent story from Lahore, people waiting to retrieve their pension funds, are forced to endure conditions unsuitable for anyone and the toil of waiting in line to collect this benefit yields the most unpleasant of all results. Government services worldwide can benefit from making the experience of a customer collecting benefits, renewing licenses, filing documents and the like far less strenuous with QLess. The world would certainly be a better place if we alleviate these types of situations.

We keep telling you how QLess is revolutionizing the way people wait in line – or rather don’t wait in line. So it probably comes as no surprise that our unique usage of SMS to rid the world of its lines has been recognized as a first place winner in Clickatell’s recent awards. Thanks Clickatell! We’re excited to be part of a solution that is transforming how people to business and customers get their time back to be more productive.

Just wanted to share a Letter to the Editor of a newspaper that was forwarded to us here at QLess. We've redacted the pieces that identify which DMV is involved, so as not to exacerbate the situation. But it's great to hear that concerned citizens, when faced with long waits imposed on them by their local government, are speaking out and telling them to get QLess to respect their time!

One of our favorite customers, Datz Tampa, recently shared the following customer feedback with us.

Our hearts go out to the victims of the quake, tsunami and now nuclear disaster in Japan. There are now queues everywhere --people waiting for food rations, people standing in line for transportation, to leave the country, and more. The last thing the Japanese need right now, with so much rebuilding to be done, is to stand idly in line. So QLess is donating its mobile line management solution for any lines affecting the victims in Japan. If you know someone who knows someone in Japan who could benefit from this, please let them know!

We recently reached a great milestone and wanted to share. Last month, Jennifer Lin, a student at the University of Texas at Dallas, used QLess and her cell phone to hold her spot in the virtual Enrollment Management queue. 21 minutes later, she was able to show up and drop a class. In addition to the 21 minutes of her life that Jennifer got back by using QLess, we've now saved our total user base over 24 years of waiting in line!

Earlier today, Charles Marrelli, Director of Experience Design at QLess, was a guest on the Colin McEnroe Show to discuss our solution to the problem of waiting in line. He was joined by a panel including Dr. Ken Chelst, professor of Operations Research at Wayne State University; Sara Frias, Marketing Director at Lake Compounce; and Melody Curry, Commissioner of the Connecticut DMV. Dr. Chelst, a foremost authority on queuing theory, said that QLess "sounds like a brilliant strategy".

QLess has some new fans over at In Line Waiting, a blog where, in their words, "you can read and share funny stories and practical tips on ridiculously long lines and the bizarre people and situations that go hand-in-hand with them." The staff there discovered QLess last month, and then invited us to write a guest post on their site. So head over to read Alex's post there: Santa Goes QLess, Restores Mom's Sanity to find out all about how QLess and Santa are teaming up this holiday season to give the gift of time back to otherwise-weary kids and parents, and the gift of more customers and more revenue to the photography company, mall management, and our sponsor, AT&T.

Will Ross has posted an elegant and disturbing poem about waiting for service at the Sprint store at 72nd and Dodge in Omaha, Nebraska. He doesn't indicate how long his wait actually was, other than noting that he didn't start taking notes and working on his poem until he'd been waiting for 35 minutes.

One of the cashiers at the Johnson County DMV shared this story with us this week, and we thought it was a great example of how QLess turns a mundane experience like waiting at the DMV into something as exciting as birthday cake! :)

 On a recent weekend, I was in Las Vegas, and my wife and I were playing poker at the Monte Carlo. It was about 9:30 pm, and we started talking about getting hungry, and figuring out if we knew any place close by to get some Mexican food and a decent margartia. The dealer overheard us and recommended Diablo's Cantina which was right on the corner of the hotel, with an outside door facing The Strip. So we cashed out and headed to dinner, arriving about 10:00.

“Absolutely love, love, love, love the system!! I had a 90 minute wait with 108 people ahead of me. So I left to do shopping, contacted my insurance company and had the insurance emailed to me home, dropped off the groceries, got updated wait times, came in with the insurance and was called to the window for service. Pam was fantastic, polite, efficient and courteous – a real delight! Whoever came up with the system is a genius! Everyone should be calling in to praise the system and the staff that are responsible for selecting and implementing it!! Awesome experience.”
— Erica, QLess user

QLess is available in any language and alphabet, and now has offices in Saudia Arabia, Malaysia, Argentina, Spain, Mexico, the UAE, Kenya, South Africa, Australia and several locations in the USA. To become a QLess distributor, contact QLess today. To contact QLess in your country, contact us and make sure to indicate where you are located.

Alex Backer was named one of "40 under 40" in a televised awards gala at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the site of the original Oscars, for the inaugural 40 Under 40 M&A Advisor Recognition Awards. The Gala Event celebrated the leading forty M&A, Financing and Turnaround professionals who have made great accomplishments before their fortieth year. The 2010 40 Under 40 Award winners have been chosen from international nominees by an independent judging panel of distinguished business leaders for their accomplishments and expertise.

ab|inventio, the invention factory -- our parent company -- was named most Innovative Company of the Year in North America Distinguished Honoree by the International Business Awards, alongside Salesforce.com.

Yesterday, QLess was selected Finalist for Best Overall Company of the Year by the American Business Awards, because of the high average scores received during more than five weeks of preliminary judging. This is the second year in a row that QLess is recognized by the Stevie Awards --sometimes called the 'Oscars of Business'. We couldn't have done it without our customers (most QLess customers have already recommended us to their colleagues, and a few of them have won awards of their own for their QLess installations) and team, so our thanks go to all of them!

--Alex

QLess welcomes Independent Sales Offices (ISOs), affiliates, resellers, franchisees, distributors, representatives, and all kinds of partners. We pay you a generous ongoing revenue share. We have offices in five continents (including Los Angeles, New York & Sunnyvale (USA), Barcelona (Spain), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Muar (Malaysia) and Nairobi (Kenya)), and are already fully integrated with some of the world's leading POS vendors and merchant processing solutions, and are partners with some of the world's leading customer flow management providers. If you think you can sell QLess or refer us to someone who could benefit from it, drop us a line. We are also hiring salespeople, business developers, marketers and software developers.

Did you know that virtually all QLess functions are available via our secure API, so you can integrate wait management, customer flow management, mobile queueing, mobile CRM, analytics and/or mobile marketing into your own application? Integration is a breeze. The possibilities are endless. Contact us today for details.

Just found this gem in a recent discussion on reddit.com:

"I worked at Target in high school, and in the 'training' before we started, they had about 15 new hires in a conference room, and they had us stand up and told us to sit down once we thought 1 minute had elapsed. They told us not to count though, but just to sit down when it felt like a minute. I swear, this one woman sat down after 15-20 seconds. Almost everyone had sat down, and it was down to just me and one other person, and they sat down, and then I felt awkward standing by myself and so I waited a bit and sat down. Turns out I sat down at like 48 seconds. The point was to show how people think things last longer in situations where they are waiting."

"We have seen the efficiency it creates, & more satisfied customers. We liked it a lot because it gives us the option to see what customers are there & service them accordingly. Everybody was excited. Every store should have QLess". -Ali Faraz, VP, Sprint stores

Ali's next move? He asked to expand QLess deployment to every one of his stores.
--Alex

" I am very excited to use all the features of this system and am so relieved to see customers using it with ease." --Cyril Wrabec, Missouri DMV

QLess at JoCo DMV named 2009-2010 Technology Solutions Award Winner by the Public Technology Institute. "The program,...an entirely new technological approach for the public sector, ...ability for customers to "place themselves in line" by providing their cell phone number either in the office, online or by phone". The awards recognize 9 winners in each of 5 categories nationwide. The best part of it is our customers nominated us for this.

QLess in the words of our customers:

"It's helped keep customers from walking away,"

One of the world's most beloved brands wants QLess for their event at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver this month, and is looking for an Olympic sponsor who would get prominent exposure in displays, kiosks, SMS, phone calls & more, + access to an audience of hundreds of thousands of rich Olympic attendees, asking them if they'd like to opt in to a special SMS offer from the sponsor, who'd be able to send interactive SMS coupons, promotional messages and/or surveys to every opt-in thereafter. Do you know anyone who'd be interested? A list of Olympic sponsors at http://www.vancouver2010.com/more-2010-information/about-vanoc/sponsors-and-partners/vancouver-2010-sponsors/ Amazing marketing/PR opportunity to sponsor the first ever QLess Olympics for less than you would think. Contact sponsorshipsqless.com for details.

After tens of thousands of students queued, here is a sample of what Mesa Community College learned by using QLess Analytics:

New rules were announced last week aimed at limiting the long wait times for patients in health maintenance organizations to see a doctor.

The Vator.tv video about QLess got me thinking about the origins of standing in line. We now know it goes back at least as far as the Egyptians. Tim recently found two references to standing in line in Ancient Egypt:

QLess launched successfully in Ohmycut!, a salon chain in Spain. So far QLess has reduced the no-show rate by 63%!

The % of those using their cell phones to queue up via the QLess home kiosk who show up for service is equal (if anything, a little higher) than that of those doing it on-site at the DMV, validating the model of remote or off-site queueing pioneered by QLess.

Nespresso, the fastest growing division of Nestle, the world´s largest food and wellness company, launched QLess, increasing the % of customers who show up for service among those waiting more than 10 minutes by 64%:

"I think this is a wonderful way to improve patient satisfaction and reduce expenses…I think this would be a killer thing to have in a healthcare organization. I'd like to have it…It's extremely neat…I wouldn't want to build and operate this in-house --I want to sleep all night long".

We visited Mesa Community College and asked QLess users what they thought of the system. Here's what they said:

From today's L.A. Times:

With three people in the household who already had the flu, I can attest that this is a flu season extraordinaire. Flu shots have run out in many places. Find out where to get yours at gettheswineflushot.com today and let your loved ones know, too.

Today we got our favorite kind of call: a customer referring a prospective customer. One of our DMV customers referred the manager of an employment services office to us. Nothing better than pleasing a customer enough to get a referral. Thanks, Amy!

Brick-and-mortar retailers and online sellers alike are noticing an increase in abandoned shopping carts and cold feet at checkout lines. For physical shops, this means more work putting things back on the shelves.

Dave Rosenthal, an engineer and MBA by training who has held positions as product manager, program manager, alliance manager, Sr. Consultant, Director of Development and VP Ops at Xerox, Deloitte & Touche and other companies including early stage start-ups, has joined our team to lead administration & finance. Welcome, Dave!

Mesa Community College launched QLess, eliminating lines at advisement, admissions, financial aid, registration and enrollment services. We asked Bill Dehaan, Director of IT for Mesa Community College, if he was happy with QLess or if there was anything we could do to improve his experience. This is what he wrote back:"So far I am ecstatic with the app and even more happy with the support I get". Thanks, Bill! We love QLess, too. --Alex

The Johnson County DMV is now using QLess Web Services to display the current wait times at both of their DMV locations on their home page. They're also using QLess Kiosk to let customers enter the virtual line from home!

I met Aaron Patzer at JuicePitcher last night. Aaron is founder and CEO of the #1 personal finance service in the world, Mint.com, recently sold to Intuit for $170,000,000. He approached me to say he loved what he had heard about QLess, and wanted to set a time to learn more. We took his words seriously coming from a smashingly successful entrepreneur who drove his own company from 0 to 170MM and created a market-dominating company in 3 years. Well, Aaron, we love Mint.com too –in fact I use it every month. If you have not tried it, go to Mint.com today –it's free, and it'll tell you exactly how much spare change you have to go QLess today. Then you can use it to track exactly how much money QLess adds to your net worth.

QLess was selected today to speak at Geeks Going Global at the Sun Microsystems campus in Silicon Valley next week.

Sign up now at Gettheswineflushot.com .

CNET covers QLess presentation at the JuicePitcher award show last night.

QLess was named a winner of the JuicePitcher competition last night. JuicePitcher, sponsored by Microsoft, Mashable, GigaOM, Wilson Sonsini, Silicon Valley Bank and other sponsors, selected the 10 most promising new companies. QLess, the only company in its field to receive the prize, clocked in at #3 in the online vote and at #4 among in-person attendees. More than 130 companies were evaluated by thousands of voters including entrepreneurs, investors, journalists and others. Voters gave QLess a 5-star average rating –that's out of 5 maximum. Details at http://vator.tv/competition/show/vatortv-and-thefundedcoms-juice-pitcher .

QLess guarantees a 400% ROI in 4 months or you get 400% of the shortfall back.*

A video of a QLess installation at the DMV

"I think overall it's a very good system. Customers really like it. The day we had a really long wait, everything was perfect.. On a 1 to 10 scale, I'd give it a 9. Educating people [about their wait] helps tremendously. It's perfect, it really is."--Patricia Rogers, Citizen Services Director, Office of the Mayor, City of Nashua, NH.

"It's helped keep customers from walking away,"
--Dada Ngo. Owner, The Boiling Crab.

"Any simpler and it would do it itself!... At our Divisional Staff meeting Sherry had some very complimentary things to say about Qless and it's staff as well. We would like you to consider us a strong reference for your firm should you wish to provide my contact info to any potential opportunity."
–John Barker, IT Director, Motor Vehicle Registration.

"QLess is a great friggen idea!"
--Mike Schroepfer, VP Engineering, Facebook

Register to receive brief QLess updates at http://vator.tv/pitch/show/qless

--Alex

This just in from Johnson County DMV about QLess:

We have a huge favor to ask that will only take a minute of your time and could mean a lot to us. But it needs to be done before midnight tonight (Wednesday). QLess, the company whose mission is to eliminate standing in line from theface of the Earth by letting people enter virtual lines and get paged on their cell phones, has just applied for a competition that could give us a lot of exposure to help fulfill our mission. We just entered hours ago, and there are less than 24 hours left, but we know we can beat all the other contestants who have more than two weeks headstart if (and only if) you all lend a hand; we're already the fastest growing contestant. We need you to vote for us in the next 20 hours. Here is what you need to do:

QLess has launched the first DMV where you don't have to wait in line. Using QLess mobile queueing, Johnson County's DMV in Kansas respects its customer's time. The launch has been a huge success and uptake of the mobile queueing option by customers has been very significant.--Alex

Many restaurant owners will empathize with this story.Do you need any more reasons to go QLess and stop wasting money on coaster pagers? Find a page full of reasons to embrace mobile line management here.

With QLess, he would have gotten an update letting him know the doctor was running late.

Someone very trustworthy, smart, organized, who is not picky about what they do or do not do but rather has a good attitude to getting things done, who has command of basic arithmetic and proper English spelling and grammar, who can do everything and anything that I can delegate. Yeah, attitude:Like, this is mine too. Your success is ours/mine. When I answer correspondence or the phone I make the person/customer/client/colleague feel like I am their personal assistant and that their agenda is important to me, their convenience is on my mind, my efficiency for them counts.And as to smart: very smart. And by smart, there are different smarts. Needs to be savvy about technology or conversant with it, but there is street smart-make sure they see things coming I may miss- they take the work to heart-it's more than a job and they have a history of acting and feeling that way. ideally someone who has been an EA to a successful executive before. Someone who can get to know key clients and leaders sometimes better than me. Someone who has worked in senior positions before a plus.Someone who anticipates what I do not. Who is proactive. And upbeat, stable and fun. Who can be light hearted and can be serious and know when.Promises future growth in one of the world's fastest growing companies in a fun, casual environment and a desire to change the world for the better. Getting honored for Best Business Innovation of 2009 and beating Google at their game in a 3rd party-evaluated blind test was just the beginning.For multi-talented applicants, job may include work in accounting, accounts receivable and payable, process design, documentation, customer support, IT, office management and appointment-setting.Send a resume to careers {at} abinventio.com for more details.** Special thanks to the always fabulous Robert Fisher for tips on this job description. rfisher.com

Did you know that QLess restaurants have served every president from Gerald R. Ford to Barack Obama? We are proud to say that Bill Cosby, Elizabeth Taylor; Nick Lachey, Billy Joel, Sir Elton John, Jessica Simpson; Hall of Famers Anthony Munoz, Troy Aikman, Oscar Robertson, Marty Brennaman, Johnny Bench, Sparky Anderson, Frank Robinson; every National League Baseball team; Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus; Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, and a host of other celebrities are all a part of the clientele at QLess restaurants. They came for the great food, great food causes lines, and lines require QLess. Proudly here to (quite literally) serve democracy for generations to come. --Alex

Adam Ostrow gives QLess a nice write-up that's on the front page of Mashable as I write this. Check out QLess Changes the Way You Wait in Line. 

QLess appeared in the press again, this time in Nation's Restaurant News, where one of our customers was quoted saying "It’s helped keep customers from walking away,” said Ngo, who was concerned about theft or abuse of restaurant-issued pagers.

A great article by Trisha Torrey about what and how it costs you to wait for your doctor's appointment.

A Kansas City favorite goes QLess --check them out.

Mobile advertising platforms and others waiting for the space to finally lift off can take comfort from the latest Mobile Advertising Report from Nielsen Mobile and its finding that about 23% of U.S. mobile users—about 58 million people-- report receiving an ad over their cell phones within the last month.

I am pleased to announce that QLess signed on Boston Gourmet Pizza, a national chain of 40 restaurants, last Friday. QLess dining, coming soon to a fine restaurant near you. --Alex

Last year, QLess was awarded the DMV contract for a city. Today, we got awarded the contract for an entire county and a much more sophisticated system. Once again, QLess beat several companies long entrenched in the queueing industry. Once again, a government has recognized that the time for a paradigm shift in wait management has come. Congratulations to Tim and Joe for a job well done. Even before this new contract is accounted for, QLess quarterly revenues have grown rapidly and consistently every quarter even in times of recession since our launch. We are confident this is only the beginning. Join us in eliminating standing in line from the face of the Earth.

Read our customer's glowing review of QLess.

John Barker, the IT Director of a DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles/Motor Vehicle Registration) QLess customer, sent us this note today after QLess was rolled out to their users. Thanks, John!

http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/database-crm/2215.html

A Walmart employee was tragically trampled to death on Black Friday by anxious shoppers standing in line to enter the store. The employee, a 34-year-old man, suffered "an undetermined death" when a "throng of shoppers ... physically broke down the doors, knocking him to the ground." Might have been different if the lines had been absent and QLess had summoned customers to enter one at a time using the QLess touchscreen-activated digital turnstiles. With QLess, nobody can cut the line, and so the rush is replaced by an orderly flow.--Alex

Just go to the Qless facebook page for special photos, videos and other fans.

The answer, from this CNN article published today about MIT Prof. Larson's studies of queueing: Not really, not if you have to stand in line. But if you free your customers to roam freely while they wait, notifying them when you're ready for them on their cell phones, the fun knows no limits. Check out QLess today!

A second case study showed 22% reduction in no-shows with QLess in The Boiling Crab as compared to guests not using cell phones. When added to the 9% reduction in turn-aways previously demonstrated with cell phone paging as compared to old-fashioned pager systems, this makes for a 34% increase in customers seated thanks to QLess, not altogether different from the 45% we previously demonstrated.If your restaurant is not using QLess, you are missing out on 34%-45% of the customers you could be serving! --Alex

abInventio, Whozat and QLess signed on mPRm, the PR firm behind Overture, RealNetworks, Disney, Dolby, Fox, Viacom and the Oscars. We are proud to be working with a top-notch team including Rachel McCallister, Bret Ingraham and Natalie Yallouz.

Alex Backer was appointed by Caltech President Jean-Lou Chameau, and joins a distinguished set of colleagues at the California Institute of Technology's IST Board.

Peter Johnston, formerly CIO for Ogilvy, the preeminent international advertising, marketing, and public relations agency and a subsidiary of WPP, the world's largest communications services group, has joined QLess. We are proud to have him among us.

Josh Kowitt, named Top 30 Entrepreneur Under 30 by Inc. magazine and former CEO of ResFridge, University Trucking and Collegeboxes Inc. joined QLess to open up our Boston offices. Welcome to the team!

Led by Kelly Stephens, a pioneer pediatrician, Mercy Health is going QLess: reducing waiting room contagion, showing respect for patients' time, and gathering a wealth of new data about their service.

Using QLess to let truckers know when they can unload, ExploreCo is doing their fair share to save the Earth for future generations, while saving on unnecessary idle motors running and eliminating lines for their truckers.

This Christmas season, kids will not stand in line waiting to get their picture taken with Santa at Houston Premium Outlets. Instead, their parents will happily roam the mall with them while they wait, shopping and dining, and get a call on their cell phones from QLess when their turn to Ho Ho Ho arrives. After all, the most recognizable face in the world wants to see the children smiling for the photo.Santa will be the first to use the new QLess Teleprompter --he will never forget your kid's name again.

City of Nashua's DMV selected QLess this week to solve their queueing needs after a competitive process.

Customers at The Boiling Crab are already giving QLess some great reviews. Eddie C. from Cerritos writes in his 5-star review:

Congratulations to the newest member of the QLess family, The Boiling Crab on being featured in the LA Times!

Keeping tabs on your business metrics has never been easier! You just have to see it.

One of our early investors was happy enough with what we are doing that he sextupled his investment in the abInventio fund. Thanks!

I am most pleased to announce the appointment of Steve Glovsky as an Executive-in-Residence at ab|Inventio. In that capacity, Steve’s role is to help commercialize ab|Inventio’s technologies. Steve supports ab|Inventio’s technologists and engineers on the business side, providing corporate business development, sales, marketing and operations guidance and support.

I stopped by Barney's Beanery today and ate one of their great appetizer platters. On my way out, I asked Betsy, a hostess, how QLess was working for them. Here is what she had to say:

The Boiling Crab, perhaps the most popular Cajun restaurant chain in California and Texas, is going QLess for 3 of its restaurants. Welcome to the QLess family!

As Yahoo's Santa Monica offices dealt with an hour-long power outage and cell phones turned useless all day across Southern California, abInventio's websites remained fully operational through the 5.4-magnitude earthquake. None of our data centers serving Whozat, HoundWire, REPcloud and QLess in Altadena, Santa Monica or Texas were affected. Indeed, HoundWire was among the first news organizations to report the earthquake, within a half hour of the event.

A new survey shows that more than 90% of restaurant guests surveyed said they prefer a QLess restaurant than one w/o QLess, and that they'd wait longer for a table if QLess was available. Something that was borne out by the fact that guests waited up to 3.17 hours to get a table using QLess (and actually sat to eat after that). In fact, the revenues from people who wait more than 45 minutes alone give a highly positive ROI for the cost of QLess --making the extra customer satisfaction for every guest a free bonus.

That's what Jonah Dumont, manager of Barney's Beanery Santa Monica, said today of QLess. Barney's was voted #1 place to watch sports in the Los Angeles area. With no having to stand in line, it's no wonder the crowds love it. Check it out at www.barneysbeanery.com or stroll over to 1351 3rd St. Promenade, Santa Monica. It's a joy of a place to eat.

Joe has a long history of entrepreneurship including The Desktop Factory at Idealab and deep industry expertise from his time at Lavi Industries, makers of the stanchions that keep physical lines organized at airports and other locations. Joe contacted us after seeing a demo of QLess, impressed by our potential. Welcome, Joe!

Yesterday was the tail-end of a weekend with record-setting heat here in L.A. What a great day to stand in a line of 1000 people at the airport, waiting to get through security.

Following in the footsteps of last month's "An almost-perfect trip to Disneyland", now Valleyfair in Minnesota is making news by changing their policy to make guests with disabilities wait in long lines for rides. The park used to let disabled guests skip the lines, but this policy was being abused. I just had a friend tell me a couple weeks ago how her boyfriend would always put on a fake cast, and rent a wheel-chair whenever he went to a theme park, just so he could skip the lines. So it's easy to imagine how badly out of control this policy was getting, and what drove Valleyfair to this decision.

A new study conducted on behalf of Capital One finds that, when faced with a long checkout line, 24% of consumers say that they abandon their purchases, and walk out of the store. Capital One is trying to promote their PayPass product, to reduce the transaction time at checkout. But rather than hurrying customers through the checkout process, why not let them continue shopping while they're waiting to checkout, instead of standing in an infuriating line?

Read Jed's post here.

Sarah Barnes from Austin writes about their family trip to Disneyland, where an almost-perfect day was marred by two unfortunate (and unnecessary) problems. First, her daughter Meredith, who has special needs, had a lot of trouble standing in Disney's famously-long lines, becoming anxious to the point of tears. Second, when requesting a special pass from the park, to help them avoid the lines, she was forced to justify Meredith's need for it to the park staff, by explaining her condition in agonizing detail. Of course, once she convinced them, she found that the "special pass" wouldn't actually help them avoid the lines.

CBS 3 in Philadelphia confirms that coaster pagers are filthy and dangerous.

Blinkx is charging north of $60 CPM for overlay video ads.

Here are some interesting (albeit slightly dated --it's only gotten better) facts about the mobile marketing industry that explain why you can’t wait any longer to start sending promotional text messages to current and potential customers!

Mr. Harteveldt of Forrester Research says mobile check-in is an option many travelers want.

I'm happy to announce that qless.com has received its first big overhaul. The site encapsulates just over 1 year's worth of thoughts and efforts on trying to eliminate standing in line. Check it out at http://qless.com

Watch CBS story.

Read what Stephen Dubner, the co-author of Freakonomics, had to say about us.

• Tim released QLess for Coffeeshops, Security Checkpoints, Hotels (check-in, buffet, check-out), Casinos (Poker tables, etc.), Stores and Doctor’s offices, adding to the pre-existing ones for Restaurants, Theme Parks and Nightclubs. As you can see, QLess can be rapidly customized to any vertical –anywhere where people stand in line, QLess seeks to eliminate the lines.

QLess reached a milestone this week with its first trade-show appearance at G2E, the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. It was a great time, and a fully-decked-out booth, complete with a touch-screen kiosk, provided by our friends at SeePoint, a Funny Money Machine, provided by our friends at Unique Activities, and a beautiful spokesmodel.

Catching up on my blogging...QLess in the press again! Check it out at No More Security Checkpoint Lines? Yes, if QLess Has Its Way.

Hello world! It's my first blog post. So bear with me... :)

The VP of Sales of a major US corporation recently spoke to me about the buzzers that some restaurants give out to the customers waiting in line to page them: "It's like having to carry a brick! I hate those damn things. Everybody hates them."

Then I spoke with our recruiter about them. "They're unhygienic", he said. "You never know what someone has done w/it before you got it".

Just wait till QLess goes mainstream...

David Thomson, an intense former technology executive and management consultant, has spent the past three years figuring out exactly what it takes for a startup company to reach that magic revenue threshold of a billion dollars. He lays out his findings in a new book called Blueprint to a Billion (for more information, see blueprinttoabillion.com).

Mike is VP of Engineering of Mozilla (the maker of the browser in which this post was composed) and one of the youngest Distinguished Engineers ever at Sun Microsystems. He wrote to us:

We were featured in Elliot.org!

• Tim completed the first alpha version of the QLess Merchant Web UI, to be unveiled soon.
• We are giving out an iPhone per sign-up plus a commission of 20% of the first year's revenues from that client to anyone who introduces us to a prospective QLess client (limited time offer). Target markets at www.waitinginlinesucks.com .

Qless (http://www.qless.com) is a hosted service that virtually manages your customer lines or wait lists.

Dear all,

Adapted from recent correspondence with Marc Andreessen: