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Cybercafes - A Dying Trend?
A not-so-anonymous Anonymous Coward asks: "I've been considering opening up a CyberCafe for a while now, and I've been searching the web for cyber cafe websites. I've found several cybercafe databases, but was disappointed to find that a majority of the sites I found were either taken over by register-this-domain pages or hadn't been updated for a couple of years. Another Cyber/Gaming Cafe I found online announced today that they were closing. So are Cyber/Internet/Gaming cafes just another bubble the net will burst, or are they actually worth investing in? Any cafe owners with experience to point one way or the other? Where are the success stories?"
I have never been to one, but I know people who do. I guess more people prefer to game at home on their PC/console. I don't blame them.
I know that in many other countries Internet Cafe's are insanely popular, but this is usually because the cost of living is so low, and the telcom situation is so bad that having a computer and an Internet connection is only affordable by the upper-class, therefore people flock to these Internet cafe's to chat, check email, play games, surf porn, etc.
In America, most people can easily afford a computer and an Internet connection, so Internet cafe's are really an answer lacking a question.
I talk periodically to a friend online who's CS clan opened a LAN gaming center, and they have gotten pretty popular, in fact they are opening new locations. However, this isn't your typical Internet cafe, people come to hang out with likeminded individuals and play games with each other in person. It's not a financial issue as much as it is an entertainment issue.
My suggestion? Don't bother. Unless you can find a niche to fill with your Internet cafe, there is nothing to stop it from falling by the wayside just like all the rest.
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
If you open a cyber cafe, you should make it kind of cozy like that coffee shop on Seinfeld.
Of course, you need the Seinfeld theme music whenever someone logs on:
Bom Chica Bow Boom Pop Pop Bow
Unknown host pong.
As a person who likes to travel, I've only found them useful to send e-mails home whilst away. I wouldn't see the point of going to one locally when I can sup my own coffee and have WiFi broadband from the comfort of my own sofa... :)
That said, EasyEverything (http://www.easyeverything.com/), seems to run this venture rather well - although whether Stelios makes much of a profit from it is another thing. He has a shedload of the bright orange public net-access points all through Europe - and they're all pretty huge. Access is usually very cheap, at the equivalent of 1ukp/hr, but rates vary according to demand.
This is a spin-off from the "easy" group, of which EasyJet is the main money earner....
M.
Internet Cafe's are relativity popular in Australia, least in dense backpacker-esque areas (Sydney, Gold Coast, Whitsunday's, etc). I've only used Internet Cafe's in these locations because I was unable to connect with my laptop. So I guess what I'm saying is unless you expect to get allot of foot traffic from travellers, I haven't seen a market for them (again, least in Australia though I'd believe the same would go for the US).
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
My worst nightmare was having to send a resume and not having a net connection at home yet (moved the day before). I had my resume on my palm but couldn't install the software to grab it on Windows nor was I allowed to boot using Gnoppix (wouldn't boot from CD). I had to go across town to a friend's house to send the damn resume.
You didn't search these databases from a cyber cafe, did you ? You didn't post this slashdot article from one, did you ?
There's your answer.
The net's not exactly bursting this bubble, it's computing that is.
I used to go to the gaming cafes to play games my modest rig couldn't handle... at the time that was Tribes. Now, it seems just about any computer can do the basic things those cafes provide... a lot of people have DSL at home, and a decent chunk of bandwidth at work. And low-end computers and graphic cards keep getting less and less low-end. Personally, where I live, there are a few left, but they're all basically dedicated computers for CS now.
Karma: Raspberry Kiwi
Well, they're probably dying in the US due to the cheaper and larger availability of high speed cable internet, not to mention the increased number of people owning personal computers. Maybe opening one up in a vacation spot so people who are visiting could pop in and e-mail friends/family, but outside the use of that, I can't think of anything.
Live life to the fullest. It's not that life is short, but that you are dead for so long.
Cybercafe's were made back when computers were $3000 and many people just wanted email. Now that you can get an emachine for $300 and internet access for $10/month (or free in many places), the whole idea is rather absurd. The internet by definition is not a social meduim (in person. over the actual net is a different story)
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
Most of the reasons given so far are good reasons, and they center around knowing the demographics of your target audience. Cybercafes obviously do not work where there's a wealth of alternatives available that would be cheaper than what you'll provide. For that reason, stay away from heavily urban areas and University towns. I've always thought that a medium-sized shopping mall in the middle of Hicksville, Kansas would be a good place to put a cybercafe. The restaurant analogy is thus: it's really hard to open up an Eithopian restaurant in the midst of the barbeque belt of Texas.
I know a couple of cybercafes that are ISP at the same time.
I know one who do web-hosting, PC repair, furniture selling, english/french/spanish translation, web-page and business card conception, typing job, ect.
One I kwow has pool tables and become a bar with a DJ at night. They also have shows and movies and exhibitions.
The cybercafe is only one of their activities. Diversification let them survive.
There are a lot of cybercafe's in Toronto, and it seems most are run by Koreans (I imagine because they're so popular there. The billing software at the Persian owned cafe near my house is entirely in Korean, not to mention that before they upgraded to XP they were running Korean copies of Win98!).
I go there for lan gaming with my friends, sometimes after hanging out at the bar next door. We did a 2-session overnight Diablo 2 run. It's often packed, with kids, even at 4am (along with the occasional drifter viewing porn). The ones in Chinatown near the University are also busiest at night. The successful ones are all open 24 hours.
There are limits to their 'success', however. Even packed all day, the places are usually pretty dingy, and after a new one opens will all new computers the hardware isn't upgraded all that often (if ever... other than headphones. One I went to apparently bought a batch of Canada 3000 in-flight phones after the airline went bankrupt). I don't see how they can afford to. The rate for students downtown is C$2/hour, with uptown rates around C$3/h after a one time C$5-10 membership (the downtown ones don't try to pull that). I guess they make money on the junk food and Jolt, but still. I once applied for work at one, and they tried to offer me below minimum... for an overnight shift. Maybe it's different in the States. In Washington I went to one that charged US$10 to check my mail!
I remember when the first high-concept cafe (long since gone) opened in the area it was $10/h, had magnetic user cards, per-second billing, Macs.... now competition has reduced things to basements full of eMachines with Geforce2MXs.
-- "Is this death or is this Ohio?"
There seems to be 2 kinds of net cafe's OS wise - fully open and locked down to the point of uselessness. As a traveller, I have a USB thumb drive with my documents on it. Sometimes you need to install its drivers and it's VERY annoying when you can't.
But that's not to say that I approve of the wide open systems either... If I can install whatever the hell I want, so can anyone else (think keyloggers, etc).
What I have often thought is if I ran one of these places, I'd give each user a removable hard disk to slide into their rented system. Once they were done, they'd return the hard disk and I'd re-image it at the front desk. That way you're guaranteed that everyone can do whatever the hell they want/need to on your systems but only while they are there.
Of course you'd have the extra expense of having a few more hard disks then systems, a system up front to re-image disks, the removable trays themselves, the additional time for the users to startup and shutdown every time, lost/damaged/dropped/stolen hard disks... Needless to say there would be a few issues to work out, but all in all I think an approach like this would be the best for all parties involved (assuming you overcome the issues listed above of course =).
Anywhoo... just my rambling ideas!
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
The successful US "cyber cafes" don't market themselves as "cyber cafes." There are no food served, no drinks, and the emphasis is squarely upon videogames. The Adrenaline Zone recently opened up here near Harvard, and it has been doing brisk business with LAN gaming and online gaming. You can surf the web if you want to, but unlike a traditional overseas cyber cafe, nobody does. You wouldn't even consider writing a paper at one.
The key to their success is probably that while everyone in the United States can find a hand-me-down computer that can run Windows 98 enough to surf and 9.95 per month for internet access, not everyone is willing to shell out the 100 dollars for a performance graphics card and another 50 dollars monthly for the DSL required for gaming (if it is even available in their area). You really do have to make a technology investment to play Unreal Tournament 2003, and so people turn to LAN gaming centers.
In other words, forget the food. Forget the printers. Forget selling 802.11g cards under the counter with crumpets. Buy a solid batch of Athlons with Radeon 9600 Pro cards, turn the lights down really low, and aim for the unwashed masses. You'll be glad you did.
The ______ Agenda
Examples include Dunn Bros. coffee in Minneapolis/St. Paul, they give away wireless at almost all of their shops, and here in chicago, even brew-pubs like Goose Island are getting in on the act. And who could forget the likes of Starbucks and their wireless AP's (though not free, I believe, still cheap)
In short, the specialty of providing internet access is loosing its high bar to entry and thus is becoming an easily integrated part of many other business plans.
I remember the cyber cafe half wasn't very busy. Well, the cafe did good business, but the computers seemed to sit unused. Still, YMMV.
The ______ Agenda
The trend I've been seeing in the US is to have cafes with wireless access points. In most, they are free. Some want money - of these, the two types I have seen are a subscription service and a jar for people to throw a couple bucks in on their honor if they use the internet access. I've never paid for subscription service - most just want too much money. I'm not going to spend $12/month (the cheapest I've seen) to surf the internet for half an hour or an hour while I drink my coffee. The places I've seen that just ask you to throw some cash in a jar never had empty jars, so I'm sure it was enough money to cover the cost of the internet connection.
Oftentimes there is a computer or two for people without laptops, but those aren't used much.
I think the big problem with interet cafes in the USA is that most people own internet connections at home, so they aren't going to go out to do it. They're much more popular near reasonably-sized colleges and universities, where students will go to study.
Just not the way you might think. The American variety that are sucessful just provide a network and internet access integrated with other products/services (often a coffee shop). Consider the integration of the grocery store with the gas station, department stores, and for that matter the modern "mall". What was once a single shop has become a conglomeration of businesses banding together to give you more reason to come to their location than make several stops elsewhere. Not just to make more money, but to survive.
Considering that the average American can surf/game from home, paying to sit elsewhere for internet/web access is questionable. Unless you can attract people with another product, you're going to have a very difficult time.
Coffee shops are not really internet cafe's they're coffee shops that provide internet access and put up with you lounging around in order to make money selling burnt bean juice.
Where I live Cybercafes are dead as a Dodo, LAN parties on the other hand are very popular.
If "CyberCafe" = Place for teens and younger to play Counterstrike, then you could have a good go at it.
The Keys:
1) Be in a city and have a 7-11 (or equivalent) near your store.
2) Hire kids that are just slightly older than your target demographic, and that the target group like, to work the shop.
If "CyberCafe" = Place to use the internet, then you better be in a developing country. People in the US either have internet access, or they go to the Main Library to use it. Or, they don't care about it. (Heathens!)
(My opinions on this matter are based on my experiences living in a major US city. If you live somewhere else YMMV.)
hey.
I have been going to lan arcades since '98. I think they are healthy and totally necessary during the high school years as a place to get out of the house and not be doing illegal (well... not TOO illegal) activities. During college, its a place to meet up with old friends and begin giving back to the owner for all the time and fun he has given you, by hacking his machines. After college, its a place to remember with nostalgia, and hack your own boxes from.
in my area, a new lan arcade opened up looking for those kids who like gaming and like learning. They are trying to get the pro-gamers on the weekends and nights while offering computer networking classes and hackathons during the daylight hours (4-7). The real appeal to this new arcade is its seperation of smoking and non-smoking sections. This is a very big draw, considering the social aspect of the gaming scene. Going through 2 packs of cigs in a night with your friends is not a cost effective or healthy activity.
However, this new arcade is faltering for 2 reasons.
1) too close to another arcade: kids are very loyal to their gaming arcades. At every arcade i have frequented; everyone knew the owners and everyone knew each other. The facilities of other arcades might be better, but the purpose of gaming at those locations is friends; the friends arent there. Find a spot without an arcade near and you will be money.
2)draconian installation procedures. Counterproductive. They are trying to entice hackers without giving them access to anything beyond their java overlay. This also keeps users from damaging the machines with poor installation choices. In the end it is better to simply wipe the machines weekly and reinstall images on all machines than limit your users... because keeping them from installing programs will drive them away in droves.
wow. that was alot longer than i thought it would be. hope it helped!
"this is the gloaming"
radiohead
> 100 dollars for a performance graphics card
:)
Heh. $100. Performance graphics card. Funny.
A good friend of mine's Internet cafe was closed down a year and a half ago by RailTrack in the UK: http://www.hyperactive-cafe.co.uk/.
Im assuming from the posts already that cyber cafes in the US are like those in the UK and slowly going out of business as people get bband. However ive spoken to people i know about internet access in other countries and they seem to think cyber cafes are the way to go. A friend of mine wanted to set one up in spain and still thinks this is a good market, as is portugal,italy, and most of eastern europe. For those of you the other side of the pond, I know places like venezeula, Guatemala etc all want internet access, but u might have to watch out for the various local law enforcment
Korea has the highest broadband penetration.
Korea also has massivly sucessful PC Bangs. Korea is a gamer society as well. So the conclusion I'd come to is, don't worry so much about the Cafe aspect, or the Cyber aspect, but the gameing and arcade aspects. Make it cheap, your main audience is probably High schoolers and college kids, choose location carefully, etc. Draconian rules are stupid. A place here in Cincinnati is now charging $1.50 an hour just to BE in the building... That's not even counting PC usage. They aren't a cybercafe, but a gaming store with PCs and tables for Magic: The Gathering and Yu Gi Oh, but still, lame.
Open systems, with a place to request something become a regular install, ghost the machines regularly.
That's how I'd do it.
Then again, I'd also have my place be a dance club at night, heh.
I've only used a couple of internet cafes in the US and UK, and they were all terribly expensive. Maybe they have a big bandwidth bill or are trying to recoup equipment costs. PCs are cheap enough now that that shouldn't be as bad.
And the coffee is usually expensive too.
(Never been to a gaming focused place).
Don't overcharge for coffee/food or get boring on the comfort/decor, that's why I'm at the cafe and not at home or the library!
VOS/Interreality project: www.interreality.org
There are quit a few here in Amsterdam (holland) and they do vary.
So what do I think that works? Well depends on the people in your area. If there is a large group of people without access at home then you can easily open a store in a central location. Add a small bar. A place where people can get a drink and access the net.
If people do got access at home you need to supply a very good reason for them to come to your place. Very fast access could be one but this costs lots of money. A fun enviroment could be one but sitting behind a computer is ultimately a single experience.
You could attempt to setup a gaming center if you got the money. But it would be very very difficult to keep the place open. Open to the general public I mean. New clients can easily be discouraged if you don't provide a welcoming atmosphere. And I don't mean just in the bar but also in the games going on.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
While public internet access surely is a good thing for e.g. travellers, I never understood why people thought there was a big market for it, and given the lack of success for most internet cafes, it certainly seems like this feeling was right.
Just look at it this way. When the cost of the computers, furniture and other equipment is paid, you still have to bring in enough profits for salaries (and yourself), rent, advertisements, internet access, various maintenance issues, etc...
Personally, I would be very reluctant to do anything with cybercafes, unless it was obvious there was a real market for it, e.g. situated at an airport, railroad station, etc...
Consider if you will this true scenario ...
,
A couple of weeks ago I went for an interview at a large video games company. Having spent several days preparing screenshots, code samples and the rest of my portfolio, I completely forgot to include a copy of my current CV. Only trouble is , I didnt realise until I'd left the house and was nearly in London. Imagine turning up to an interview without a copy of ones own CV... tut tut tut. I dont have a laptop, let alone a portable printer so i was in the shit!
Anyway, thanks to a little Internet Cafe around the corner from Euston station , 1.50 later I walked out with a copy of my CV feeling releived and with plenty of time to get to the Interview.
Just wanted to say, that there are very real uses for Internet Cafe's even with the argument that a large percentage of use have broadband at home.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I had toyed with the idea of a cyber cafe, until I ran the numbers through a spreadsheet and realized there was no way I could come anywhere near my current salary workin' for the man. Harder work, longer hours, and less pay makes RobertB a dead boy.
But one idea that came to mind was to set up in Dallas' pseudo-punk Deep Ellum strip, where the preppies dress goth and gawk at each other. There would be booths with Internet terminals, a nominal quarter-hour fee, and overpriced drinks.
Here's the twist: the bartender controls several large-screen TVs, which he/she can connect to whichever surfer is most interesting at the time. Like a DJ, the barkeep would be able to adjust the "mix" -- maybe some softcore porn on one screen, a CNN ticker on the other, and someone's hacking session over in the geek corner.
For added enjoyment of the crowd, add picture-in-picture: the surfer, and what they're checking out at the moment. Why is the guy looking at porn so bored, and why is the hot chick reading Reuters so...
Of course, not everyone would want to surf with the world looking over their shoulder. No problem -- for a small additional fee, the bartender would be blocked from showing your mug... a little more to block your surfing altogether.
Just a crazy idea! I'll stick with the steady paycheck, for now.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
I live in a heavily traveled tourist area fetauring mostly shopping that caters to youn families and seniors. We are a very small town with an amazing amount of hotels. I think that there are 5 in less than a mile and at leaste 10 within 10 square miles. The first 5 I mentioned are directly off the expressway. During the weekends all these hotles will sell out and during the week we do a good trade in buisness travelers because we are located halfway between Saginaw and Flint MI. Only one of these hotels have High Speed Net access. The buisness travelers are usually horrified because on the phone lines they can only pull 28.8. On the weekends the board husbands are looking for anything to do while their wives shop for 10 hours straight. We do have a Starbucks in town and their $10 an hour Wi-Fi is not up and running yet. If I had the money to start my own shop I think I could make a mint off these people. I would set it up as a coffee shop/snack bar. I would offer free 802.11b wifi access to anyone with a laptop. I would have several (~800mhz) terminals running Knoppix with a hard drive for SWAP and file storage. Rent out the useage of my terminals on a half hour rate. For the buisness guys a laser printer at .05 a page (I have heard many times, "What no Kinkos around here"). I could even possibley get into some (emergancy road)repairs, or create a second half to the store that sells hardware and does repairs.
The point to all this is that in this location it would work. There is no Library, no Kinkos, no 80211.b hotspots, no net at all.
Except for -- as noted by other posters -- dedicated gaming cafes, internet access alone is not a particularly compelling reason to go anywhere. It's too cheap and pervasive to be much of a commodity unless you have a captive audience, as in airports, or you offer all kinds of additional bells and whistles, like Kinko's, and frankly, I don't know how successful that end of their business is.
Most of the successful places I've seen in this market would be successful without it. Back in my hometown (Nashville, TN), there's a little joint called Cafe Coco. It's an old house that has been converted into a coffee bar/restaurant and general hangout. Free access by WiFi and a few hotly contested CAT-5 cables is just a perk that they offer. There are always several people there with laptops (including me, when I'm in town), though to be honest, they don't always seem to be buying much food. But they're right next to Vanderbilt University, and I suspect most folks would come with or without the net access. This includes me, since I don't have a WiFi card in my laptop and seldom bother fighting for a strand of CAT-5.
In short, make the cafe your main focus, and treat the cyber as a minor marketing point. An old Linux firewall/NAT box and some cheap APs are a minor investment, anyway. If you're talking about providing the machines as well, you're insane. That's a major expense even for ordinary businesses where the employees can (usually) be expected not to screw them up on purpose.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
a cyber cafe isn't really a sound bussiness...
A normal cafe with free internet terminals may be more sucessful... (Web access only)
Internet should be used to attract customers and you should make your money off coffee and food sales.
Internet is so cheap and the norm these days no one is going to pay to use it.
Also offer free wireless access to attract users with their own laptops.
Another service could be a lan party room which you could charge for...
Or have a room with a few high end machines loaded with the best games which you could charge for...
Offer good background music, a good atmostphere(couches, lots to look at, etc...) and free internet and I'll be there buying coffee... Oh yea and it has to be great coffee...
God, root, what is the difference?
The visionaries of the "Hackers" movie design the slickness of a cyber cafe. There's gotta be room for other things beside boxes ,WiFi access and food. Maybe other activities to do there, such like a dance floor for dancin' once u filled youfself with all the coffee u can drink; some kinda DJ mixing; a simulator(car,flight,etc); a screen for checkin gaming, hackin pieces of art, or mixing images; couches or tables for just talking...The point is that the place gotta have things to keep people hangin' there and spending, wheter using computers in that moment or not. I think that's the real business.
Have you gone to your local library lately. Chances are, they will have computers that have internet acces but are locked down pretty tight. I am able to view internet news, apply for jobs, and chat all through the Library's computer lab. And its free, I don't even have a library card.
If I were to go to the local interent cafe/gaming center I'd have to pay $5/hr. That's reason enough to make me look for alternatives.
Go Gusties
I think it got to the point where ordering broadband became a whole lot cheaper than what you'd spend on computer time, drinks, and gratuity if you went out in search of faster net access. I would occasionally go out to a cybercafe here and there when I had dialup, but now that I can get 1.5/256 ADSL for $27/month, there's just no point
I frequent a little bar/sushi joint that's tucked away behind a popular street in my city. They've got a few computers there they rent out at 11 cents/minute, and in my going there once or twice a week I've not seen anyone using them.
At the same time, though, they've got wireless access there for free. I'll often come back from work, have sushi and a beer or two, all while working on a few personal projects on my laptop. Apparently it's still not all that popular, because every time I show up there with my laptop the owner asks me how I like it as if I'm the only one who ever uses it.
I like how more restaurants have decided instead to use free wireless as an added value, rather than something you go in and pay out the ass for.
I work in Chatswood, a CBD area north of Sydney. Due to Chatswood being a major business/community "hub" (major train and bus terminals), we have large numbers of schoolchildren passing through each day, and a lot of office workers passing through at lunchtime.
There are around four to five inet cafe's I'm aware of, predominantly run by Koreans. There is a large population of asians in the area too, which contributes to the various cafe's success.
Most of them are strictly gaming-oriented, and are successful due to large numbers of teenage males playing games in the afternoons after school. This means that they can play with their 'clanmates', games such as CS, Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2. I usually go there at lunchtime occassionally to tune out playing a game of C&C Generals.
As to the locking down/etc, I think these days most cafe's would make a killing selling the cheapest keyring USB drives they could. The gimmick factor would probably make them an attractive purchase.
Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
For a successful cafe you have to have a service that will prompt repeat business. Internet cafes tend to do no more than wet the appetite of your customer to get broadband when he can afford it. When he does, bye-bye customer.
If you are looking for gamers, I think the best solution would be to focus on the cafe portion and set up a networking enviornment where people could bring their own pc's in and plug right in a play. It would reduce your start-up cost and would be simpler to maintain (except for having to make sure everyone had the right patch, but if you have 5 or 10 rentable machines you should have the patches on the local network). Here you are selling a community where you can get 5 of your geek buddies together to kill Nazis until one of you hits it big enough to do it over at their house instead. The customer fall-off rate would be much lower since the cost to have your own space is substatially higher than the cost of a PC. (Who wouldn't love to host a LAN party, but can't due to lack of space?)
Even if you live in a town where you caould sell league memberships (bowling lanes have them for a reason...) you'll still need a side business to keep them spending money. 30 people paying $3/hr to play CS won't cover your equipment, rent and utilities...
Make pizza's, sell drinks and (depending on your areas demograph) sell beer. Dealing with drunk gamers everyday could be a fun way to make a living. Set it up like a sports bar where people can watch the in-progress game if they want too - and try to remember you are a bar first.
If you are trying to sell internet access only (where your clients would be happy with a $300 e-Machine that works) requires much better placement. You are not betting on repeat customers but people who are out of town and need to check e-mail or download something. If they lived intown they would just go to the library...
What you need here is a very touristy area, or at least a curtained off area where your neighborhood porn junkies can use your [whatever the popular adult verification site is now] login and password to get their fix. You could easily get $5/hr from these people, but you'd want to cover the entire room with tile or plastic so you could just wash the room down with a hose (and bleach and Comet, and Windex and...)
Disclaimer: Click's is owned by my mother.
I live in a big city in Europe, and I used to use them to look at my work e-mail sometimes, but now I am afraid of keyloggers. There is no policy in my firm about not using these (we have OWA), but maybe there should be, we are all moving to SmartPhones and the like anyway now.
I like to surf in them sometimes though. While in airports waiting for example. And I find looking at the bulliten (sp) boards is a good way to find out what is happening locally.
The problem with running an internet cafe is that I dont believe that anyone actually makes money with the cafe itself. Ive known a few people now that have run cyber cafes.. and all of them used the cafe as a place to do computer tech work, where most of their money came from. all of which found that it was more money to drop the cafe guise once they get the computer tech business up and running. The problem with running cybercafes is that you have to do high volume to get cheap prices from food distributors.. Most cafes have a very small customer base. If i were to give advice in starting a cybercafe.. i would say u should open a franchise resturant or coffee shop and put computers into it.
i live in thailand and have a small internet shop
...
(no cafe). it's 50% tourists that just write their
email and forget the "do not remember my password"
box and 50% thai kids playing Halflife and Ragnarok.
i installed Unreal Tournament 2003 but no one but
me is playing it.
128/64 ADSL is 85 US$ unlimited 24 hours.
one hour of computer use is 20 Baht, that's about
0.75 dollars per hour.
i have identical 7 compis: AMD 2700+, 512 RAM, 20
GB harddisk, nVidia 5600 Ultra (128 MB), high
quality flatscreens (Sony and Samsung).
i have to admit that i'm very proud i acctually
got the whole thing running, considering this
to be 3rd world country and weekly blackouts.
escpecially in the rainy season (a small river
would collect outside the shop).
i've got the safest, most up-to-date setup for at
least 100 km around, but just beside my shop
there is another internet "cafe" with pentium 2,
flicker CRTs and *ta-da* Windows ME.
EVERYBODY GOES TO THAT SHOP!
I was first angry but with time it grew to
amazement. it was rediculous. people would just
plain ignore my shop. they would acctually WAIT
in line when the other shop was full.
of course sometimes i would get lucky and someone
would pop-in and have a look around, sit down
and ask: "how do i start the computer", the
screens being in power-savings mode, then ask
again where do i have to click at the windows XP
Pro log-on screen (you know it says: "click your
username to start".)
or one time the customer would just push the
big green button on the monitor effectively
turning the monitor OFF, quote "the computer's
not working".
the whole project turned out to be redicilous
(but very fun!) because tourists would prefer
and old buggy Windows ME maschine to a new
one with Windows XP.
so lesson learnt, just because i'm (def.) a geek
and look out for quality, many many people DO
NOT! AND: people are very, very computer
illierat! i've seen old thai ladies searching
the login button on hotmail with the mouse
pointer for 5 minutes (positioning it)
I'll be closing in two weeks and moving my gear to
another, maybe more appreciated location.
another internet "cafe" in my town has about 34
computers and they're brimfull 14 hours with
kids playing games. it's just off a crossing with
redlight and when the cars start there's a huge
cloud of exhaust fumes as they accelerate past
that shop and it's open aired (no air-con)...
math: 20 baht x ~34 computers x 14 hours = 9520
Baht a day, thats about 250 US dollar a day
of course at least 2 computers have a sign
"not working" attached to the monitor everyday.
and you'll find a ton of pop-up ads when using
iexplorer. and of course porn-dialers.
overall we have about 15 internetshops in a 10'000
people town.