Other coffee establishments such as Panera Bread in the US and a few locations around Toronto offer meeting spaces for small groups. This is a great opportunity that I think bodes well for location based services. We can see using a LBS to create Meet Up opportunities, peer invites, offers etc. This allows them to capture business users while curbing the appeal to WiFi Freeload all day with a Terms and Conditions acceptance on the WiFi splash page.
So Starbuck`s obviously considered the risk- reward of the scenario and rather than an epiphany here it is more of a capitulation. The new Starbuck`s Digital Network will work as planned to add rich media that supports the coffee society norm- to hang- but not to attract the cash free crowd. This is the dichotomy.
Heck you can`t discriminate against who comes in to buy a coffee. But I think back to the Smoke Shop at the Mall where I would go and check out the new `Dirt Bike`magazine on my way home from highschool as a teenager- the Apu type shop keeper would come over and scowl at you and point to the sign on the magazine stand ``LIBRARY WE ARE NOT``where I either abandoned the magazine and split or bought it.
So perhaps we can create a patron generated campaign to rid Starbuck`s of WiFi freeloaders with a greeting card or WiFi reminder. Ìf I catch you without a coffee `you leave PDQ``. More likely will be a metered WiFi usage based on a last purchase or `Check In``. Before the Free WiFi, local partners provided 3 hours of free access per day. That is reasonable. So to institute this will require some thought now that it`s free. If you backpeddle on the offer you get slammed so this won`t happen.
What is more likely is a `Branded LBS play where a ``check in`` puts you into the location and starts a Wi Fi connection time via the splash page. When you purchase something and accrue points for time, it`s a self managed and non-judgemental system without the scowling shop keep and a penalty box taxonomy. With this model, professor freeload gets booted for not purchasing anything before he gets the chance to take over 4 chairs- if he can`t connect he leaves without incident.
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