Free wireless by google..

[mangyatel]

Google has come up with a very good initiative by offering WiFi free
for mountain view residents...
But can anybody please help me with Google's Revenue Model for Google
Wifi? how is google going to gain from this venture?

[M/Q]

I see them as pursuing the razor/razor blade theory. They will give you the razor, but then you have to pay for the service with allowing them to have information and more than likely adverts on a splash page.

Also a huge advantage for them is that they are in tight with the city and get to add their equipment to the existing infrastructure (light poles) that the city owns. Kind of like the telecomms, who also have that same control over the infrastructure. It certainly gives you a leg up on any future endeavors.

[FlaWireless]

Google has more money than ___________ (fill in the blank) this is less than a drop in the bucket for them. They are just doing some R&D with this to see where it can go.
M/Q has got it right, look into the future.

[umdivx]

also the theory is with location based advertisers. What can happen is google will present a add based proposal to local resturants and hotels, so when your using the wifi it will pop up adds for say a lunch special to a restruant that is just down the block from where you are. IMHO that'd be the best form of advertising ever.

- Josh

[mangyatel]

Thanks for ur views....Agreed that Google will give an ad based proposal to local advertizers, but Google can flash these ads only on the Sign-up/Log-in page. Once the user has logged in, he's surfing the internet. Then how will he view google pop-ups? Eg. i logged in with my user id and password and then i started checking my mails on yahoomail. Now how will google ad's pop-up when i'm on the yahoo webpage. Is there ne way this can be done? If that is so then Google's goin to earn bigtime via advertising space.

[umdivx]

its called "walled Garden" the same way the redirect you to their login page, Say ever 15 - 30 minutes they do another webpage redirection and so you an add. Maybe they'll do it where the page your on will still be there and they'll just add a bar on top or bottom. your guess is as good as mine, but with a walled garden setup they can pretty much do whatever they want.

- Josh

[Planet]

It looks like the offer, at least for now is limited to San Francisco and it seems to me that google has its job cut out for them with trying to blanket the city with wifi with its notoriously tall hills, deep valleys and huge buildings. I cant wait to see how it all plays out.

[golfnut]

And data mining which is very powerful info for an Internet company. They'll have the ability to track everything you do on that network although I think they mentioned that they wouldn't do this.

Greg