And We Have Lift-Off - RedButton Free WiFi Product Launched

We had a highly successful launch of our Free WiFi product at Long Street Cafe yesterday. To top it off ITWeb today published an excellent article Dining out on restaurant WiFi which effectively follows up on an ITWeb article Free WiFi is 'hard model to get right' published nine months ago.

We spent the time in between the publication of the above mentioned articles working on our Free WiFi product. Our intention has always been to get the Free WiFi model right, to make sure that venues are provided with a product that is flexible enough to make it work for them in their unique environment. Market feedback is certainly showing that we have got it spot on but we won't rest on our laurels, the work continues.

If you'd like to find out more you may be interested in our news release Boost your business with RedButton's new Free WiFi product.

RedButton Free WiFi Product Preview

We are officially launching our new RedButton Free WiFi Product on the 9th of June and it is available for preview. The product has been specifically built to cater for the needs of the hospitality industry, its all about boosting traditional sales and brand loyalty. Restaurateurs and hoteliers have the control needed to use free Internet as a flexible and effective tool to boost their business.

The following picture of a display outside Wimpy Rondebosch serves as a prime example of how RedButton's Free WiFi product can be used. In this case, since Wimpy is generally chock-a-block serving their legendary breakfasts in the mornings and burgers at lunch time, management decided to make the automatic 50MB free wifi allocation available after 3pm only.

The advantage of an automatic allocation is that little intervention is needed from restaurant staff. Should fine grained tracking be required one can correlate product sales with the free Internet allowance by using venue specific vouchers - for example you get a free 50MB voucher if you order a drink.

We've worked hard on this product. Earlier editions, without all the features currently available but with the fundamentals, have been in operation for nearly eight months now. In the process we have spent time listening to what venue owners have been telling us, listening to what their needs are, rather than what we think they are.

With this product we hope to have once again shown our commitment to flexibility and adapting to market needs. Thanks for listening.

Three WiFi Gadgets That Will Change Your Life

In this grandiosely entitled post we have a look at three WiFi gadgets that could make your mobile life easier, or just help you glow in the dark.

Eye-Fi - Wireless Memory Cards

Eye-Fi produces memory cards with WiFi built in. In essence you are able to upload your pictures automatically to your PC or favourite photo sharing website (e.g. Flickr, Facebook) once you come within range of your regular WiFi network(s). The service that allows for automatic uploading to photo sharing websites, called WebShare, sounds particularly useful. Imagine all the pictures you would finally be able to share effortlessly instead of leaving them on your hard-drive or worse, still on your camera after months, gathering virtual dust.

Eye-Fi comes in 3 versions, Home, Share and Explore. With Home you can upload to your PC at home, share throws in access to WebShare and finally Explore gives you geotagging functionality and complimentary hotspot access in the USA. We can't wait to get our hands on an Eye-Fi SD card, the Share option looks like the one to go for since with Home the pictures will still be stuck on you PC only it will largely happen transparently.

It seems Eye-Fi SD cards have not yet reached South African e-tailers, search results on Digital Planet, kalahari.net and pricecheck.co.za only showed plain vanilla SD cards. The only place we could find Eye-Fi was here on Amazon.com.

Unfortunately Eye-Fi cards will not work with any hotspot network, such as RedButton's network, that require the user to log in via a web browser splash screen (see this Eye-Fi FAQ entry). Allowing access without a browser based login process is something we are not currently working on but we may in future.

Hotspot Detectors / Wi-Fi Finders

There are a number of manufacturers that have released Hotspot Detectors that allow you to check for signal without having to power on your laptop. Why would you ever need one? Well hotspots are not always very well advertised, for various reasons, and these devices make it easy to pick one up. Imagine being in the middle of some town square in a town you don't know and you need to get connected fast and free if possible, you'd look for open networks on your Wi-Fi Finder and probably head to the coffee shop that tops the list in terms of signal strength.

The ZyXel AG-225H Wi-Fi Finder is one that looks half decent. It can do more than just find WiFi, it takes the logical next step and functions as a WiFi adapter.

And Finally...

If Eye-Fi and Wi-Fi Finders don't work for you, why not get the ultimate, a WiFi Detector Shirt? It sports glowing animated bars on the front that dynamically change as the surrounding WiFi signal strength fluctuates. Walk down any WiFied city street at night, perhaps throwing caution to the wind with a quick sprint down a dark alley, and you'll be lighting up like a christmas tree.