Too bad their "pizza" will still be cardboard w/pepperoni, cheese, and tomato sauce spread over it.

how i time a pizza........ roll one up, order the pizza, smoke it, pizza arrives shortly after to accomodate munchies.

Sweet. I'll know when to look out the window to see my neighbor dumbstruck at a pizza he did not order.

Oh wait that was 20 years ago.

I used this about two weeks ago in Boston, MA.

Kind of fun to watch I guess. Can't beat the delivery time. From the second I ordered on the internet to my door was less than 15 minutes - darn impressive.

Taking Neal Stephenson Too Seriously
by Winston Thorne

Act 1, Scene 1 - The Domino's Boardroom

CEO: Johnson! Why aren't we making any f*$%^ money anymore?

JOHNSON: (shifting nervously in his chair) Well sir, our pizza tastes like something a hobo fished out of a hospital dumpster, and our customer service sucks.

CEO: Well what the hell are we going to do?

JOHNSON: We have $x million dollars to spend, and I was thinking...

CEO: (cutting him off) Well that's not what you're paid for. Let's put tracking systems on the pizzas.

JOHNSON: With all due respect sir we could just invest the money into making real pizza instead of continuing to hawk rubber-coated cardboard. That way people would actually care when their pizza doesn't show up.

CEO: Shut the f&*^$ up Johnson! That plan sucks! I want to be cool like Uncle Enzo! Now get your bitch ass back in the kitchen and track me some pizzas!

Wasn't there a recent article about a problem with a Domino's, where corporate responded that each franchise is individually owned, and that they could not help except forward the complaint to the store owner (who screwed the consumer in the first place)? I love how they'll do that on one hand, and on the other, make it seem like corporate cares about bad service. [consumerist.com]

So will this involve GPS technology?

Man, when I worked at Domino's in 1994-94, we couldn't even keep the light-up cartop signs working....

@snoop-blog: Amen. How time flies, brother! I suppose the tracker would be nice if you over do it and get paranoid (ie, did I even order the pizza? the pizza is soooo not going to get here. Maybe I already ordered it and ate it?)

With GPS and RFID baked right into the crust!

That's real? I saw that the last time I place an online order and I thought it was just for show. I didn't think the person's name it displayed and all that ("Matt is making your pizza" or some such) was actually pulling real data from anywhere.

Snazzy.

Snow Crash comes to mind.

In reality though, this probably sucks, along with that 30 minute guarantee coming back. At least it will for the overworked and under appreciated drivers that are already lugging your 3 pizzas, 2 2-liters, cheesy bread, and whatever disgusting sugar-covered concoction Dominos is currently offering.

@stevegoz:

GPS was my thought, until I read the USA Today article and saw this:

Alas, a key part of the pizza's journey cannot be pinpointed: the drive from Domino's to your home. But Domino's can tell folks when their pizza left the store, and officials say it should arrive within nine minutes of that time.

All the Dominos system does is output the process flow from their in store point of sale system. It will tell you that they are making your pizza and putting it in a car, but not what happens after that, which I would argue is probably where things are the most likely to go wrong.

I ordered a pizza last week and it was already up at my local dominos. It's pretty weird to see it in action in real time. It tells you who's preparing the pizza, when it goes in the oven, etc...

They tried to use satellite technology to determine when your delicious Domino's Pizza would be delivered, but mortal science doesn't handle infinite time-scales very well...

I don't remember the last time I had Dominos (I live in NYC, after all, so what's the point?), but I just might have to order a pie from them just once to see this marvel of pointless technology in action.

@FLConsumer: Unless you order a P'zone. Then you are eating the most delicious heart attack EVER.

@DashTheHand:

But Domino's is making it very clear that it's not a guarantee, just a "target."

Why don't they use all that science to make their freaking pizza taste good? It's just bread, cheese and sauce, how hard can that be?

I like dominoes

@Ghede: Dude, that's Pizza Hut.

Man, this is so AWESOME!

Awful pizza, but awesome technology.

Wise man say: Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza!

@Szin: wasn't that off of ninja turtles? classic!

I coincidentally ordered from Dominos online last Friday and used this tracking thing. about 35 minutes after placing my order the meter had progressed to "Delivered - we hope you're enjoying your pizza!" But I still had no pizza. I figured maybe the guy was downstairs and the buzzer would ring any second. it didn't. 10 minutes later I called them and asked why the tracker indicated that my pizza had been delivered when I was still hungry and pizza-less? The clerk said that if the driver has move than one delivery to make they ALL get marked as delivered after the first delivery, but that my pizza should be arriving soon. 15 minutes after that my pizza arrived. Great system, guys! I suspect they use it to also inflate their stats in regard to delivery times. My delivery took almost an hour, but the tracker said 35 minutes... which number do you think Corporate prefers to see?

That's great! Now the police will know exactly what time the pizza delivery guy got robbed when he delivers to my neighborhood! Good going, Domino's!

Dominos has been sending me e-mails telling me to order pizza online, and then when I try, they tell me that my local Dominos doesn't have online ordering available. Now, they only got my e-mail address because I asked them to tell me when the local store *did* accept online delivery, so...

Perhaps this will bring some accountability to those lovely Domino's drivers who always seem to arrive at my door with cold pizza.

Why does everyone despise Domino's? I think it's pretty good. However, I do live in Ann Arbor, their hometown, so maybe it's better here.

I hate Dominos and most pizza places. I have a pizza place about 5 minutes from me that doesn't deliver, but their store is always packed because the pies are so amasingly good, cheaper than Dominos or Papa Johns and faster. 15 to 20 minutes, fresh out of the oven.

-10 to Chris McGlothlin for a missed opportunity to use "infotainment."

@zimzombie: Everyone despises Domino's because the co-founder/former co-owner is a right wing nutjob. Domino's was strictly verboten in my house when I was growing up. I actually like their food better than Pizza Hut, but that's not saying much and I still get pangs of guilt whenever I eat it.

That's wonderful. They still haven't responded to a complaint letter I sent them weeks ago, though.

i think its actually pretty simple (if they're are in fact tracking the pizzas accurately): they just have to track which delivery car the pizza is going into and then track the car... which we already have the technology for.

cool. now let's work on making good pizza.

So will their system mention when they firebomb a family-planning clinic on the way to your house? If it included video, it'd be RAD!

@zimzombie: I enjoy their pizza... It's not the best I've had but it's definitely not the worst. I get the feeling that everybody who says that it tastes like cardboard live in an area where they're lucky enough to have like 5 or 10 family-owned pizza joints within 2 miles where they live. There are the various chains around here and only one non-chain pizza place (which is okay; it's not even that great).

When it gets down to it -- talking trade balances here -- once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here -- once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel -- once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity -- y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else:

music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery

- Neal Stephenson, "Snow Crash"

I used to hate dominos, but I don't anymore. If I order online, I get what I ordered, 100% of the time, unless they don't have it. then they cal me for a substitute. This isn't a shill; ordering online seems to be pretty bulletproof. Their pizza could be a lot worse; it beats a few local places, and is soundly beaten by a few others.

But this new widget... "Sean has put your pizza in the oven!" Then it shows up. Roommate says, "Boy, not enough pepperoni. Sean, you suck!"

What a f*cking joke. This thing said my order sat in the "heat Wave" bag for 1/2 hour before it ever left the store. In all I'e been waiting 1 1/4 hours for pizza as of right now. A call to the store and I found out that pizza tracker has no correlation to the actual location of your pizza. "We would never leave a pizza in a heat wave for 1/2 hour."
Anyway, it finally got here and guess what? It was cold. Go figure.

@shertzerj: I spend most of my time in a virtual chain food hell (Tampa, FL), but there are a handful of local pizza places and yes, that's part of the reason I think Domino's tastes like cardboard... BUT, even in the absence of a local pizza place, Domino's still tastes like cardboard.

Wait this is so cool. So if they "get lost" at the titty bar on the way over, I'll be well informed?

@Psychodad1961:

In order to spend on new technology, they have to cut back on other expenses.
Realistically though: all they do is make pizza, what do you expect?

The funny thing about this is the one time I have witnessed the "pizza tracker", it said my pizza was delivered and it hadn't been. So I called Dominos. They said there had been a car accident with one of their drivers and that they had given the stuff to another driver. It never came. They never followed through on the promised refund. Sad face.

@emptydarkone: It's possible that your address is "different" than what's in the system. Mine house is oddly numbered and not in the system so to speak. I had to change it to the normal one and put the extra info in the instructions so they knew which house to bring it to. Basically my house is the same number as the one next door and the #B I use to distinguish it isn't really "real" I guess. But either way I can order Dominos online now.

@winstonthorne: ...and then Hiro Protagonist bursts through the door and starts dishing out some hurt with his swords.

Meh, I have a 3 minute walk to a Dominos, if I want to call them for a pizza, I'll just get carryout.

Wonderful! Now that they've solved this non-issue, maybe they can spend a few dollars in research so their pizza doesn't taste like ass.