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Coming Soon to a Wireless Hotspot Near You: Ads
mindless4210 writes "A new generation of spam is born with the launch of FreeFi's new Wi-Fi advertising network. It is the first service of its kind, with intentions of delivering ad content to hotspots around the world starting in mid-Summer. FreeFi's President, Lawrence Laffer, says that the service displays a 'persistent set of ads adjacent to the user's browser without use of invasive advertising software or pop-up ads.' He also claims '[their] market research indicates that, except for pop-ups, people really don't mind ads.'" This seems like the kind of thing that would keep me from using "free" wireless access, but I've a feeling I'm in the minority.
I'd rather deal with ads (although i'm undecided about flash adds with cutesy soounds) to get free wireless access, although i've had some bad experiences with hotel's that offer free wireless - mostly that they periodically shunt you to a very slow loading, grpahics intensive splash page. Still... free with a catch is still free enough.
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
Isn't this the same exact thing that NetZero (and Juno and others) have tried in the past with dial-up? Are any of them still offering free access?
This seems like the kind of thing that would keep me from using "free" wireless access, but I've a feeling I'm in the minority.
Yep, the majority of us will just find a way around it. I kinda doubt they'll be putting ads next to my lynx window.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Submitter: He also claims '[their] market research indicates that, except for pop-ups, people really don't mind ads.'"
CowboyNeil: This seems like the kind of thing that would keep me from using "free" wireless access, but I've a feeling I'm in the minority.
Actually, Mr. Cowboy, you just validated their business plan.
While the idea of free wireless Internet access is fun for the user, there's still the annoying fact that someone's paying for your bandwidth. Ideally, geeks like us would be more than happy to open their broadband connections to the world -- I would, if I could get broadband in rural east Texas.
Unfortunately, there aren't enough altruistic geeks per square mile to sustain that "business model". So someone has to pay the bill. Why not advertisers?
I run Opera, but I'm too cheap to pay for it. So I have a banner ad built into my browser. I even click it sometimes -- out of curiosity, or to send Opera some ad clicks. I'm willing to put up with advertising to get the product, and lucky for me, the model is working.
I hope ad-supported wireless access takes off. I wouldn't put my money in the companies, though... anyone remember Bluelight?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
But, Netzero, Juno and others got themselves a customer base from offering free then converted to pay. They turned many of those customers to pay customers. Same thing could be applied here.
It's like drung dealing. First you get them addicted then you start charging.
Evolution or ID?
This reminds me of an old points programme (emphasis on the "mme") that paid people to surf with ads on their machines..... Now: My poll question: What is more acceptable: Ads a) on top or below your surfing/working window or b) to the left or right? My vote is for the right side, as we normally read from left to right, and the ads are discarded by (my) brain as superflouous. Comments? Opinions?
BTW, I only ask this and entertain the notion because like it or not, ads are going to be a part of the hotspot experience.... why not do it right from the beginning?
I think I could live with the ads if it was definately a free service. The thing that scares me about this is that eventually we'll start seeing services that make you pay AND cram ads down your throat. (see Cable TV)
Also, it depends on what kind of software they make you install to see the ads / access the network. I'm assuming that they'll have to use something because if it's just a proxy I think it would be to easy too defeat. If they make you install special software, is it going to be Windows only?
I don't have enough details to make judgment yet.
I'd much rather the hotspot be funded by charging an extra $0.10 for coffee, or whatever the business may be. Actually, I just set up a WiFi hotspot for a local coffeehouse and the "free" WiFi has brought him enough extra business that he feels quite justified in not charging extra for the service.
WiFi should be a condiment, like catsup or salt or paper napkins...
This will require software to be installed on the client's computer in order to display the ads besides the browser, I assume.
Does that mean that there is a 99.99% chance that this software won't install on linux (or Mac) and only windows laptops will be able to access those spots?
Isn't there a better way to do this that doesn't require software installation? like injecting HTML code for banner ads in the pages viewed by users on your network like free hosting companies were doing all the time back in the days?
Does that also mean that there will be no way to tell if there is malicious (or even vulnerable) code bundled with the software?
If the free wireless internet access is funded via advertisements, then those ads are not spam. Television ads are not spam; spam is widespread and unsolicited advertisement.
This is not to say that advertising is not often irritating and intrusive, but beggars can not be browsers without being subjected to ads.
Of course, they could very well be monitoring and recording what you are doing online, above and beyond simple browsing information, in the name of 'targeted marketing'. But that is for the tin foil crowd to determine; I do not have a laptop, let alone use wireless access in public locations, so I am not too concerned about the privacy implications, 'First they came for the WiFiers' be damned.
It's cool, it's FREE, supported by nonintrusive ads on the side of your Web browser, and it's likely fast, too.
... cry me a river.
And all a significant portion of the Slashdot crowd can think to do is whine about it being "probably closed source" and "probably Windows" and you don't know if it's secure or not
You want to use it, cool. Don't do anything that you wouldn't want published in the NY Times. Do that stuff at home.
If you want your Open Source and your Linux and your guarantees that it's free, well, open up your own business and give away YOUR bandwidth.
And quit whining, dammit. Geesh. Use it or don't.
When you look at it, whats the cost for a small coffe chop of restaurant to offer free wireless in their place? Maybe $50-70 a month for broadband, then slap in a Linksys wireless router for $100, then maybe figure out how to lock the thing down a little.
/. for hours on end in a nice environment.
Let the customers know that this is a free and open network, and that you're not responsible to what happens to their machines, and thats about it.
Its been my experience that people will go to a place to pay 10 times over cost for a cup of coffee spedifically because they can boot up and be online without having to goof with their settings too much. Like these folks, I will even spend a little more just staying there a little longer because I can sit and read
10 people a week spend an extra $2.50 a visit because of the wireless and you get $25. 4.2 weeks in the average month adds up to $105.
Bingo. WiFi cost recovered.
This doesn't even take into account the Evercrack geeks that will sit there for hours on end mainlining shot after shot of espresso into themselves for that extra twitch speed while playing.
This is just yet another attempt at a useless industry trying to insert themselves into a place where they're not wanted or needed.
Hey Marketers, fuck you. We're not going to buy your shit no matter how many times you put it in front of us.
s'wut i sed.
I've stayed at a hotel (C??rty?rd) which, on top of $10/day for Internet access, has proxies configured to hijack requests for Amazon. If you try to buy something through their connection, they rewrite the headers to get the referral credit. This should be illegal... I noticed because at the time I stayed, their code was a little broken, at least with Moz/Linux, but it was clear from the error message what they were attempting. I just used an SSH tunnel through one of my systems for the rest of my browsing... but I'm sure they made some nice bucks from the victim class (MS/IE users).
Its a way to rope you in, then slowly increase your cost to actual hard dollars...
Look at what happened with TV.. used to be free.. then commercials.. then nothing but commercials...then cable... now you got cable and dish with a fee to watch the commercials.....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yup. You got it. But, again, they don't have to allow traffic on non-standard ports. They could decide that P2P clients / games were too bandwidth hungry, and there was no income coming in from them anyways, so just have the firewall drop all outbound connections to any port other then 80. In which case you would need a proxy that used port 80 to play games.