In the never-ending battle between Yahoo and MapQuest, I now give the edge to Yahoo, which is including Wi-Fi hotspot locations on their maps:
- Mountain View
It is unclear to me how they are getting this data -- you won't find your neighbor's access point listed on it, and some retail locations I know of are missing (Dana Street). They do have every Starbucks and McDonald's listed (sometimes twice), along with apartment complexes, miscellaneous stores (Borders, Apple) and coffee shops.
This is good advertising for those retail chains and apartment complexes. It also means that the next time I visit Boston I won't have to walk up and down Newbury Street with my signal strength indicator trying to find a place to drink coffee :) (Boston Wi-Fi map).
(via asa)
Comments (2)
Well, they are using the Intel Centrino logo to show you where the hotspots are, so I'd guess it mostly lists corporate, not-for-free hotspots. Pretty useless, at least until those guys give up on that business model...
Posted by Paul | June 26, 2004 9:28 AM
Posted on June 26, 2004 09:28
most of the spots are for-pay spots (esp. since 75% of the spots are Starbucks and McDonalds), and, not surprisingly, I don't see the AMD-sponsored free WiFi spots listed, but there are some free WiFi access points listed (I'll have to see how hard it is to access the apartment and hotel WiFi spots).
My guess is that the centrino logo is b/c Intel is (like AMD) subsidizing WiFi spots in order to get their logo everywhere, in addition to paying Y! some dough as well.
Posted by kwc
|
June 26, 2004 3:05 PM
Posted on June 26, 2004 15:05