[geeks] Now for something completely geek

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Thu, Aug 24, 2006 at 03:14:14AM -0400, der Mouse wrote:
> "Yes I do pay for it; I paid a minute of my time, and that's $1.50 at
> my usual rates.  Furthermore, that's a best case; if it arrived when I
> was driving, or worse, asleep, the disruption would be much more."

In 2004, we were looking at using WiFi to download games to the infamous
handheld device and I found that there simply wasn't enough free access
to make it worhtwhile. Kids were not goint to pay Kinkos or Starbucks
for WiFi access to download a game.  The billing would also be a nightmare,
becuase a game download may take a minute or two (or a lot less), but the
pay sites wanted to bill in 15 or 30 minute units.

I wrote a business plan, got the technology together, found an investor
to start a company that installed and operated advertiser supported free
WiFi access in public spaces. You could also pay for more service which
would be advertisement free.

At the time I found that the cell phone ad system you talk about had
been tried at a mall in the U.K. and customer satisfaction was so poor that
people avoided the businesses that advertised on them.

I had come up with another level of service, a small handheld device which
you "rented" for free at the door to the mall, which delivered target 
advertisements to your device based upon your languange and profile. Instead
of using GPS and cell phones it used WiFi and some technology I will only
mention and not describe as I hope someday to patent it, which solved the
problem with places where GPS does not reach (such as inside a mall) and
the granularity of it. It ieven was to include a "family" option, so each
member of a family could keep track of the others.

We were all set to start make a presentaton to the investor and Intel
announced that they were providing the hardware for a free WiFi network in
Jerusalem and had arranged for grant money to fund it. My investor disapeared.

The free network never went very far because the grant money came from the
city and the city council had no desire to fund it in a city that needs
a lot more public works, etc while more than half of the citizens refuse
to own computers.

The whole point was that what I was doing was voluntary. If you wanted
the free cookie, or the free supersize, or wanted to know that your particular
clothing items were finaly in stock, you could take the handheld device 
and get the adds. If you did not want to be bothered, there was no reason
to take it. 

Geoff.
-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
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