"OpenTable.com allows people to make restaurant reservations online."
OpenTable VP Andy England. It isn't the only site of it's kind. Food.com is putting together a similar service. But OpenTable is linked with America Online and is scrambling to sign up restaurants in ten cities so far...
"And the way that we do that is we sign up restaurants one by one and we install what's called an electronic reservation book, which takes the place of their pen and paper system, and we put a broadband connection into the restaurant. So when you are looking for a reservation at www.opentable.com, you're actually looking into the restaurant's reservation book in real time to see whether they have availability."
Hundreds of restaurants are linked into the system so far and the list is growing all the time. The greatest numbers ... .no big surprise are in San Francisco and Seattle. The system is designed to work with wireless Internet devices as well... like browser enabled cell phones. Letting you quickly see which restaurants have that open table, can save you lots of time on a Saturday night. You can find us on the Web at ThirdAge.com. Bootcamp, I'm Fred Fishkin for CBS News.