[Previous entry: "Pill lets lunks get laid"] [Next entry: "This is so wrong"]

02/19/2004: "LESS is more"

Rich Mac Kinnon is a long-time acquaintance from Austin and a fellow refugee from the VC wars. Back when I was involved with Fringeware (another link), Rich was involved with the first Internet opera at UT's ACTlab. Way back, he was involved with Portal, so he groks the Internet from its earliest public days.

The press release is dry. (Aren't they all?) When I had coffee with Rich last week at one of their installations, I was floored. Not because Rich and his crew have a nifty iTunes hack to hook into SXSW, or even that the whole business run on Linus. Thats cool, but the deeper scoop is that Rich understands that WiFi in public places should be free and has developed a business model that actually generates cash. I won't expose it here, call Rich if you really want to know.

So, you can pay Starf*cks to listen as Sheryl dredges up the past, or you can use the WiFi and listen to over 24 hours of cutting-edge bands, and pay nothing. Pay to be sold to, or not pay to experience. Your choice. I prefer the gonzo approach.

Seems that most of Fringeware has gone WiFi one way or another. The original "founding fathers": Jon Lebkowsky and Paco Nathan are both experimenting with WiFi. Monte McCarter is the webhead at Wayport, and Patrick Deese is running an Internet Cafe down in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Jamie, of course, is Netgate.