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Microsoft backing ad based municipal wi-fi service
If you live in Portland, Oregon or Oakland County, Michigan you could soon be surfing at high-speed from the comfort of a parkbench without paying a dime. Microsoft has teamed with JiWire to begin testing municipal wi-fi deployment with ad revenue as it's primary funding source. Ad delivery technology by JiWire will be used to really squeeze every last dollar out of the valuable eyeballs of wi-fi users. Google, already offering a somewhat similar service in San Francisco, is handling their own ads, and Microsoft's partnership could signal a larger push to compete head-to-head in yet another market against the Google kids.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jonathan Harford said 10:50AM on 7-19-2007
Yes, and how is this going to work? Some ideas:
* Wi-fi devices lacking browsers will not be able to use the service, since the ads will then be unviewable. Hope you weren't hoping to SSH to your home computer or check your POP account.
* You'll have to download a special version of IE to access the "free" wi-fi so that ads can be delivered in a sidebar without interrupting your browsing. Sorry, Linux/MacOS/Symbian users!
* or maybe the wi-fi routers will merely insert ads between pages? Every fifth page will be an ad with a [Click here to continue] link at the bottom! (Note: This might 'cause some trouble with Web 2.0 sites, but I'm sure they'll get straightened out eventually.)
Yeah, I'm a little cynical.
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James said 11:41AM on 7-19-2007
Maybe you need to install a client, like the old NetZero (back when the name wasn't an ironic misnomer) or something. I'd be pretty wary of such a thing, and your argument about support for other operating systems would probably be accurate. But at this point, so many hot spot users are connecting with devices other than (Windows) laptops, it must have at least occurred to them.
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Dick Nose said 1:25PM on 7-20-2007
>> Yeah, I'm a little cynical.
Yeah, free stuff sucks.
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