A Wee dram o' Whisky and a good shot of technology have resulted in a revolutionary slant for visitors to Dewar's 'World of Whisky' Distillery (take an internet–based tour of 'World of Whisky' at http://www.dewars.com/worldofwhisky/default.asp). Dewar's has teamed up with FileMaker the information management solutions company, FileMaker's alliance partner, Majikam, and graphic designers, Motivo, to create a real time e–postcard system, available via kiosks to all the visiting public at Dewar's, Aberfeldy, Scotland.

Business Challenge

Dewar's wanted to create a website and on–site kiosks that were functional and appealing. After designing a world–class interactive website for Dewar's, Motivo needed to find a partner to deliver an electronic postcard solution for the many kiosks implemented by Motivo for the Dewar's World of Whisky Visitors' Centre. Motivo chose a small US company, Majikam, for its unique methodology, technology and tested reliability in stand–alone kiosks and high traffic events. FileMaker, whose database tools are renowned for their flexibility and ease of use, provides the foundation of this unique technology.

Successful Solution

Majikam technology creates a unique web page or 'Majikam' using the visitor's photo and text input (i.e., a message to the recipient), simultaneously e–mailing a link from that Majikam to the sender and the recipient. This unique system invites users to see live screen shows in a video stream superimposed on the chosen background in real time. Once the user, standing before the Majikam kiosk, sees the image he or she likes, the user clicks 'take photo'. A preview screen appears so the user can re–take the photo or continue to the addressing screen. On the addressing screen the user enters identifying information including name, e–mail address, the e–mail address of someone else and then a text message.

On the back–end, Majikam uses several specialized servers to hold and serve the database contents to the Majikam web server. The versatility and stability of the FileMaker Pro Unlimited solution is the backbone of the Majikam message server. AJ Fardella, Director of Majikam, said: 'FileMaker's unique ability to hold multimedia assets and/or references to stored resources makes it the most versatile tool for this type of multimedia web application.' What makes the system stand out is its chroma–key image facility, the real time nature of the visual message and that it can create and send e–mails instantly. Mason Miller, Technology Director of Majikam, continued: 'FileMaker provides the tools necessary for Majikam to design, test and deploy our web application projects in very short time frames.'

FileMaker's ease of use and versatility is what makes it possible to develop this kind of project from concept to final so rapidly.

— Keith Harris, VP International, FileMaker

Keith Harris, VP International, FileMaker, said, 'FileMaker's ease of use and versatility is what makes it possible to develop this kind of project from concept to final so rapidly.'

The system operates in the following way — waiting in the e–mail boxes of recipients and senders of the Majikam postcards are Majikam message links. Once clicked on, the sender's e–mail links open the Majikam in the user's default browser. On display in the Majikam messages is the Motivo design, featuring a link to Dewar's website, the chroma–key video capture made of the sender at the World of Whisky, the sender's email, and a text message.

The role of FileMaker Solution Alliance (FSA) partner, Majikam, was to assist Motivo by receiving completed graphics files laid out as HTML, which were integrated into custom front–end application. Majikam then built a custom Web database application, using FileMaker, to deliver and serve them over the Web.