Today's pubs are serving up increasingly varied titillations for the palate and otherwise, but how would you feel about supping on Internet content at your local?
Cork-based computer services company Purtech launched Ireland's first coin-fed Internet terminal recently under the name of Coynet (IRL) and claims it is the first to offer an unrestricted, unhackable, wired-up slot machine for the Internet on this side of the Atlantic.
The pay-as-you-go service promises to bring the Internet to the digitally homeless - those without access to online computers. But will it catch on? The cybercafe experience looked poised once to become everyman's gateway to the Net.
Unfortunately for its believers, Web surfing over an Espresso proves too esoteric a pastime still, and many a sip-and-surf outfit is sinking into the seas of insolvency.
However, there are still a number of entrepreneurs who think pubs and other public places will be a better bet in trying to separate a curious and increasingly Net-savvy public from its loose change. dough.
What Coynet is offering the pubs, clubs, and just about any other public space you could name, is an arcade-style mounted PC with standard Web browser. This will deliver full Internet access for about 20p a minute. With the promise of a nice little profit and favourable rates negotiated with Internet Service Provider Ireland-On-Line, potential operators are clamouring to get hold of their rigs, says Mr John Purcell of Coynet.
"We are having great success with hotels, pubs, train/bus stations, arcades, even universities. It's a very diverse market."
Coynet's online kiosk delivers the content of its Internet larder via the usual keyboard and mouse/trackball set-up and the machines are now competing with the juke box and fruit machines for that idle recreational pound or two. But what will the average pub goer be surfing the Web for?
Witness to the launch of the Coynet machine in Cork earlier this year, Mr Rory Fitzpatrick of The Media Factory in Cork is sceptical about its use in pubs: "People won't be looking up chemical formulas when they are drunk in the pub."
While questioning the staying power of a pub gimmick in the public places of Ireland, or any other country, Mr Fitzpatrick reckons that ultimately only good could come of Internet outlet being as accessible as a coffee machine.
There has been concern about users getting hold of inappropriate material or blatantly illegal content in a public place, but these are quickly quelled by Mr Purcell - censorship on his devices is an option, he assures:
"You have to realise that 99 per cent of pornographic Web sites require credit card payment for a password to gain access. And, if the client wants censoring software to prevent the accessing of pornography, we will of course supply it. It's not up to us to police the Internet or the content of it but obviously we don't condone any illegal literature that is available. What we do give is the option of being able to censor it."
Potential operators can choose to have standard software fitted such as Net Nanny or Cyber Patrol that will filter out `harmful material'.
Worries about pornography may stem from the British experience of a similar vending service.
UK-based WebZone has its coin-operated browsing kiosks operating up and down the country and claims to take the Internet to the computer-illiterate by "making the Internet easy to use and fun". The Websites on offer concentrate on sex and sport.
The sex content has, however , been restricted to what WebZone's Brian Hitchim calls magazine-type environments. "On the sex site we have the softer offerings such as Playboy and Playgirl. We haven't included a keyboard because, for one reason, without it you can't enter a specific address. If someone knows of a pornographic Website they want to go to they can't. We are attempting to limit the access to pornography as much as possible."
Purtech is not specifically targeting pubs, however, and the Coynet machines may find their true niche in drink-free public spaces. Indeed, a number of pilot projects on Internet access in public places will start soon in the go-ahead Cork region.