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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.
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.
Good... stay off the free service and leave bandwidth for those of us who have the amazing innate ability to ignore ads. Hosting these free hotspots costs money (as does slashdot). They need to recoup their costs or they will go bye-bye. Who f'en cares if there's a little bit of your screen taken up with ads that will be easily ignored (at least by the majority of us not included in your minority)?
It's a good thing you run a website free of ads. Oh... wait... shoot. Now, why again do you have ads? Oh... that's right, to pay for shit.
Casual Games/Downloads
reminds me of good 'ol /. with the ad-banner down the side
www.necroticobsession.com
I was going to say this same thing, thanks for saving me the time.
In other news, television, magazines, radio stations, newspapers, taxi cabs, and sporting events may soon have to turn to advertising to help cover costs.
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.
Maybe you can run it inside Vmware, and have your "real" OS route through the virtual machine. Or the crossover guys could make a hacked WINE just for running this client and network interface.
And it failed too, remember free dialup? Free internet access for looking at ads. Where did they all go? Out of business.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Sure the ad system isn't the best but it's functional and beats having to wait in line for 45 minutes to buy a pack of $20 ciggarettes in a Socialist/Communist society.
You can't have your cake and eat it too I'm afraid.
Wagner LLC Consulting Co. - Getting it right the first time
I kept looking for how it actual works but didn't see anything. Maybe I just don't have much Wi-Fi experience. Are the ads forced through the browser? Does a custom piece of software need to run first? I'm not quite sure how the ads are going to get onto my computer screen.
Someone will write an application/patch/work-around that deactivates their ads without effecting the service. Those in the know will use it. Those not smart enough, or not clued in won't. This is how it always is. The application/patch/work-around will be brought up here of course. It always is.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
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?
Larry Laffer, I guess he got out of the pimps and hoes business and retired the leasure suit.
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?
...they've found that the reason people don't mind ads other than pop-ups is that they don't notice them.
Oops, so much for that business model.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
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.
Granted high speed has more value to it than POTS dialup, but is this company really going to be able to compete? Several states are starting to consider WiFi as a viable public utility that they provide for "free" using the Tax Base. Benefit to the people is seamless wireless access without ads. Benefit to the state is reliable high speed access for public safety and services such as fire, police, EMS, etc.. Plus, once they ensure that everyone is online, they can begin reducing costs by allowing a great deal of government red tape to be handled electronically. (i.e. paying speeding tickets or applying for building permits)
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
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.
Long ago I took up updating my hosts file with data from http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/ which provides a list of known ad servers that you then point back to your local machine.
I decided to take this one step further and change the mapped to IP to be that of SCO, so that each time I come to Slashdot and don't see their ads, I instead see a small bit of the SCO homepage, what you might call a mini DoS
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
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).
If this business model works for Wi-Fi networks, could it works for water network?
Our water network, here in Montréal, Québec, is in a very bad state. It will cost billons of dollar to repair it, and neither municipalities, provincial or federal government want to pay for fscking it.
I personnaly wouldn't care to have an ad displayed in the bottom of my toilet. I might even enjoy using it, sometimes, depending on the advertiser!
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance." Isaac Asimov
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 ----
"Wait, I thought the consensus here was that everything should be free be and open. I for one find it apppaaaauuulling that they're not willing to offer a service that costs them money for free. I mean what if i'm at the park and the next kernel comes out and I can't update until I get home? This is just like the corporate fat cats, always trying to "make money to live off of!""
I know at least 20% of the people out there reading the headline to the article were thinking that. I'm also willing to bet that 40% of them are currently unemployed as they would be at work now and not slashdot. (I'm a college student so I got an excuse.) What's the big deal with this, everything "free" today is laced with ads of some type. Ads are everywhere, deal with them by not buying sugared water for $2 not by bitching on slashdot (which by the way is free to you and paid for by ads!).
Other than your internet connection, most of the content on the web is free but paid for by ads. If you're in the park and you get free web access and bitch because of some popup ad, then don't use it! Connect to the internet from your cell phone and pay for the minutes!
> It's like drung dealing.
I'm sorry it's nothing like that. Dealing in one of the 56 ethnic groups in China is totally different to this.
I've never received a supply of free Chinese people only to have them turn around and ask to be paid.
John.
"A new generation of spam is born with the launch of FreeFi's new Wi-Fi advertising network....
Excuse me, but that's not spam. It's like calling the ads on the side of slashdot for spam. It's not. Spam is something you didn't ask for. You do indeed ask for these ads when you chose to use their free service.
I hate spam as much as the next guy, so no reason to cry wolf!