Ryan Twomey
Web developer and entrepreneur in Woburn, MA.
This blog is my personal space for sharing stuff I find interesting. Typically this is technology- and business-related. I'm the co-founder of Draconis Software, a web software development consultancy based in Woburn, MA.
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New Draconis Software Site Design
Just a quick note about our new site design (if you haven’t noticed already). We’ve put a lot of effort into redeveloping our site, hopefully conveying a fun, bright feel. The main change, though,…The Free WiFi No-Brainer
This morning, I stopped at a Starbucks to grab an iced coffee and noticed the place was hopping a bit more than usual. Perhaps it was just the rain outside, but nearly all the tables were full - and, I noticed more laptops than usual. Could this be due to the “free” WiFi rollout announced yesterday? After a couple of mis-starts, it now appears that all Starbucks customers who buy a Starbucks card (and use it once a month, yadda-yadda-yadda) can access the Internet connection without an additional charge to T-Mobile.
To me, giving out free WiFi like this is almost a no-brainer. The main thing that makes me pause is a recent Boston Globe article about coffee shops around the city that had tried the free WiFi route before and been disappointed in the result. To them, giving out the free access put more butts in seats at their shops, but didn’t necessarily result in increased sales (some were claiming that customers would come in, buy a small coffee, and take up space for the entire day).
Cafe owners said they must determine which kind of Internet service — paid or free — will be most profitable, a calculation based largely on the number of seats and neighborhood competition. Owners of venues that offer free wireless believe it makes them attractive to customers. Shops that charge for wireless bank that they will make more from the access fees than they would in the additional traffic a free signal might bring. But in both paid and free hot spots, owners become concerned when tables are commandeered for hours and new customers cannot find seats.
My argument to this (and probably the one shared by Starbucks) is simple: more butts in seats means the increased likelihood of increased sales. People sitting in a coffee shop are more likely to buy coffee, and those who go to the shop and can’t find a seat aren’t any less likely to buy a cup of coffee then if they could find a seat (after all, if they go in, can’t find a seat and leave, they weren’t showing up for the coffee in the first place). So, if shop owners are worried about customers not finding seats when they want them, they should expand to meet capacity.
Of course, coffee shop owners are in business to sell coffee. If they’re concerned with having enough capacity for people to sit down, meet with other people, work together, etc, then they should relocate to a library.
Will TiVo Become Software Inside Your TV?
Well, it was inevitable: TiVo is moving in the direction of working with the cable companies, rather than against them. It makes perfect sense of course: consumers know the TiVo brand - and more importantly are willing to pay a premium for it over the cable company’s offerings - and reinventing the wheel doesn’t benefit anyone. Personally, I’m glad to see this: I’m a long-time TiVo subscription owner, and in order for the company to stick around in the long-run, partnerships with cable companies would need to happen.
Might Tivo (TIVO) one day be embedded as a piece of software in your television set? The company is rapidly moving in that direction. The DVR pioneer’s recent linkup with Comcast Cable (CMCSA) is putting software in New Englanders’ cable boxes that would enable Tivo’s fast-forwarding and view-later capabilities to work without having to add a separate Tivo box. If that experiment works, a national rollout could follow.
Pure Digital unveils Flip Mino for smaller, sexier crap videos
Filed under: Digital Cameras, Portable Video
Yahoo Redefines 'Fail' - Again
Mathew Ingram submits:Some details of the back-and-forth between Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) have come to light as a result of the unsealing of documents in a shareholder lawsuit against…
Apple Gives Mobile App Store A Boost: Free iPod Touch For College Mac Buyers
As rumored, Apple has unveiled an aggressive back-to-school promotion: College students, faculty, and staff who buy a qualifying Mac — at their education discount — are eligible to get a…
@answerme Answers Your Questions On Twitter
While everyone takes a break to bash Twitter these past couple of weeks for the infrastructure troubles they’ve been having, I thought I would chime in with a useful service that I…
Meerkat: simplified SSH tunneling
Filed under: Software, Security
I would wager that most of the people who know they need an SSH tunnel also know the Terminal commands to make it happen. But if those people happen to…
Is Facebook Squeezing Its App-Makers?
Facebook is going through a redesign meant to reduce the clutter on its once-sparse pages; it’s supposed to let users see what’s most important to them, and keep them from burning out and…
Google Finance and the Real Time Web
Google is announcing this morning that after more than a year of work on the problem, Google Finance is now offering real-time price quotes for any stock traded on NASDAQ.
As Henry Blodget…