Wednesday, July 2, 2003

McDonald's Wireless Web site Lots of good dish on McDonald's wireless weblog from Russ Reiter who reports from 80211 planet.   The following is 5% of the whole. 802.11 Planet:  Branding and marketing hotspot services McDonald's WiFi strategy Starbucks' strategy Different marketing techniques Problems with customer filling tables? WiFi Alliance                            Grey Hayes is discussing the development of the WiFi zone branding campaign, which includes the WiFi Zone logo and the WiFi Finder.  There are more than 1,000 service providers in 2,700 countries in 30 countries who have signed up.  The WiFi Alliance is shifting to provide much more general consumer information, notes.It's not always easy for the WiFi Alliance to convince companies offering WiFi to consumers to display the WiFi Zone logo, he notes.  Many companies don't want to promote other brands. Branding of McDonald's versus Starbucks McDonald's doesn't expect the person behind the counter to answer questions about WiFi, except to say that, yes, it's here. WiFi kiosks in McDonald's? Jamison also thinks it's great if people use the service outside the restaurant.  McDonald's specifically asked their WiFi providers to ensure coverage in the parking lots. Content filtering [Reiter's Wireless Data Web Log] comments? [] 6:34:46 PM     A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy   (This essay is a lightly edited version of a talk, "A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy", about persistent patterns in the design and operation of large-scale and long-lived online groups....I think we're seeing a revolution in social software in the current environment that's really interesting. And third, I want to identify some things, about half a dozen things, in fact, that I think are core to any software that supports larger, long-lived groups. - More at http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html [Clay Shirky's Essays ] comments? [] 6:04:06 PM     Google gag Bravo! Go to google.com, type in "Weapons of Mass Destruction," and hit the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button for a good laff. Link Discuss (Thanks, Brad!) [Boing Boing Blog] comments? [] 5:49:05 PM     Speakeasy Allows Customers To Sell Their Own Wireless Broadband. Found over at...   Speakeasy Allows Customers To Sell Their Own Wireless Broadband. Found over at Glenn Fleishman's Wi-Fi Networking News, and apparently not yet picked up by any media outlets is the news that Speakeasy, the DSL ISP famous for (get this) actually being customer friendly, is letting customers sell their own bandwidth. Speakeasy already encourages people to set up WiFi networks and to use as many computers as they want (unlike the big name companies that want you to pay extra for every computer you connect). Now, accepting the fact that the bandwidth they sell you is your bandwidth, they're making it easy to turn around and resell your own bandwidth to your neighbors. You set the price, and they handle the billing. They also provide email addresses and other features like access to the Rhapsody music service. You split the revenue 50/50 with Speakeasy. While I think most people would probably just as soon let their neighbors use their bandwidth for free, it's very cool to see a company admit that the bandwidth is yours to do as you please. Every day, Speakeasy looks like a better broadband provider. As the big cable and DSL providers get more and more restrictive (while raising their prices) it's cool to see a company that is letting customers do what they want. Clearly, they stand to benefit as well (taking 50% of the fees!), but whereas other broadband providers would see this as "theft" Speakeasy is being smart about it and seeing it as an "opportunity". [Techdirt] A company that gets it. I'd sign up if it were available. I am sure that this type of business model will gain as time goes on. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog] comments? [] 5:41:41 PM

© Copyright 2003 Jon Schull. Last update: 11/10/03; 6:42:17 PM.