According to MuniWireless, the city of Portland, Ore. is getting free WiFi, thanks to Microsoft. Google is following a similar strategy, already giving free WiFi to the city of Mountain View, Calif.
This is clearly a trend that will continue, as free WiFi means a loyal userbase and more eyeballs for ads.
So why aren’t newspapers following a similar strategy?
Considering the dollars and influence print still has in local markets around the country, they could – and should – offer free WiFi. They could give it away in return for subscribing to the daily paper and it’d still be cheaper than most broadband services.
As a result, they could rebuild their image and readership with younger customers, as well as secure an audience for ad dollars now and down the road.
Opportunity is knocking. If they don’t answer, Google, Microsoft or someone else will. The race is on.
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November 15th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
Hi Joel,
David Manaster blogged this just the other day. I’ve been thinking about this for over a year while I was at the Boston Globe and the Free WIFI initiatives were popping up all over the place, Philly, San Fran, etc. Newspapers have the sales teams on the street in local markets to really generate some revenue. Give away some Wifi…sell lots of local, targeted advertising. PPC, PPA,whatever. Here’s Manaster’s blog.
http://www.ere.net/blogs/Hire_Calling/809CC92DB8544F28BE7BF63386FC18E1.asp
November 15th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
And we even have a small local company Brite Yellow in Milton Keynes, UK offering the same!
November 20th, 2006 at 4:23 am
It would be nice if the citizens were let in on this little bit of information! Too bad the city hasn’t told us about the wi-fi!
November 22nd, 2006 at 4:18 am
Yo! Cheezeman. I hope you are not posting without giving proper attribution.
This was on ere.net like a week ago. It’s o.k. to post stuff, just give props to the original author.