McDonald's Expands In Wi-Fi
Following our recent post about WiFi in McDonald's not working, the Wall Street Journal is saying that McDonald's is about to announce the official expansion of the pilot program to the San Francisco Bay Area (followed quickly by a launch in Chicago). The addition of SF has been talked about before, so it's no surprise. However, there are some more details about the business model. While I was initially impressed by the original plan to give anyone who buys a Happy Meal an hour of free WiFi, that idea might not be working out so well. The article says that the NY stores have shifted gears and are offering completely free WiFi all the time until the end of the month. If the problem is (as was suggested in the earlier article) that no one is using the WiFi, this isn't likely to change anything. The WSJ report also says that, while the NY offerings were built and managed by Cometa, the SF ones were done by Wayport. What's a bit unclear from the article, then, is whether or not you will have to sign up for Wayport (or Boingo, which offers Wayport) to use the local offerings, or if they, too, will be experimenting with other business models. If the McDonald's down the street is included in the test, then I may have to have my next lunch at McDonald's to check it out.
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