Pajama Entrepreneur

Stats: iPhone has 0.09 percent of Web usage — yes, that’s a lot: In this post Valleywag points out that iPhone users tend to use the Web more than non-iPhone users. Excerpt:

Windows CE, which encompasses every Windows Mobile device shipped, holds a 0.06 percent share; Danger Research’s Sidekick product family holds a tiny 0.02 percent share; and the Symbian S60 smartphone platform, favored by Nokia, has 0.01 percent.

My take is that it has everything to do with the user interface and how easy it is to visit sites, check maps, look for information online. A lot of phones are clunky (terrible design) with the typical phone dialing pads or have ugly, impossibly small screens. Who would want to browse a website on that?

Microsoft launched a unified communications platform (merging email, instant messaging and telephony) that Business Division President Jeff Raikes claims will put an end to telephone tag:

“The era of dialing blind, the era of playing phone tag, the era of voice-mail jam…that era is ending . . . I don’t want to get in touch with your number. I want to get in touch with you.

Sorry Jeff, but actually most of the time, I don’t want to talk to people. I want them to leave a message in my email box which I can either read or listen to in order to determine whether it is worth responding to. Based on what I hear and read, I will respond.

Why do companies love offering products like this - a hodgepodge of stuff that does not really solve a pressing problem? Right now my problem is I get too many emails from business contacts, friends, family, email newsletters, etc. The last thing I need is people managing to reach me via phone interrupting my already busy day.

I want FILTERS, intelligent ones, and I have a few solutions already using email, but nothing is optimal. Messages from close friends and family go into a mailbox marked “read right away”. I have various mailboxes for different levels of urgency. But what I certainly don’t need is a solution that allows people to talk to me whenever THEY want, not when I want.

I am such a fan of free open Wi-Fi, but even that won’t get me into a McDonalds (I hate fast food in general). Nevertheless, it is a step in the right direction for European public hotspots which are still dominated by large carriers charging a lot of money for access. The Netherlands’ KPN offers Wi-Fi via its HubHop service, seems to be everywhere, including unfortunately the train stations. Swisscom Eurospot is also in a lot of hotels and charging piles of money.

Signs of change: the Stagecoach buses between London and Oxford, as well as the National Express between London and Cambridge, offer free Wi-Fi on all their buses (click here to read article on Muniwireless).

Now let’s see if other cafes, restaurants and public transport authorities follow. After all, their primary goal is to get butts into those seats. If Wi-Fi can help, then offer it as an amenity.

If you are a pajama entrepreneur like me, you don’t have the luxury of hiring an IT manager for the office, especially if you have a home office. That means YOU are the person in charge of setting up and maintaining your Wi-Fi network, securing it, etc. So, I am pleased to see that Glenn Fleishman has just released updated versions of his very popular, highly readable books: Take Control of Your 802.11n Airport Extreme Network and Take Control of Your Wi-Fi Security. Go to Glenn’s site to get the discount code and order online. They are e-books so you can download them, print them at home or read them online. Very handy if you are traveling or work out of different offices (and it costs much less for their publisher to update because they don’t print them).

His “Take Control of your Airport Network” book which I bought a few years ago saved me a lot of time and took the mystery out of wireless networking.

The city of Paris has begun offering free Wi-Fi access in public parks and gardens, museums, libraries, and other public buildings. To find out which areas have Wi-Fi, go to wifi.paris.fr. Inspired by San Francisco, the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, issued a public tender last year, seeking a provider to deploy the hotzones. SFR and Alcatel-Lucent won the bid. France Telecom, a sour grapes loser, is suing the city, saying it is unfairly competing with FT’s own paid hotspot access. France Telecom’s subsidiary, Orange, is reportedly Apple’s exclusive partner in France for the iPhone.

Ironically, San Francisco, the original model for this project, has no Wi-Fi. I guess depending too much on a private company to fund everything (in SF’s case, EarthLink) is a fantasy.

To read more about the Paris Wi-Fi project, click here. Another successful project recently launched by the city is Velib, free bicycles available at various points in the city, especially around metro stops. The city partnered with JC Decaux, the outdoor advertising company, to fund this project.

Paris Wi-Fi website: wifi.paris.fr

iPhone users who are hoping to use the device for more than just voice calls will be clamoring for Wi-Fi everywhere when they find out how slow EDGE really is. Thank heavens for Wi-Fi! This article in Information Week says:

Wi-Fi is even more important for iPhone users in the U.K. where, according to media reports, the exclusive iPhone provider O2 covers just 30% of the British population. To help make up for the skimpy coverage, subscribers will be offered free connections to Wi-Fi provider the Cloud, which operates more than 7,500 Wi-Fi hotspots in the U.K.

T-Mobile has a lot of hotspots around the world and in Germany, so Apple’s choice of partner in that country is wise. However, will a T-Mobile Germany user be able to seamlessly log onto a T-Mobile hotspot in San Francisco? We shall see . . . .

Virgin America will be offering Wi-Fi on flights starting in 2008. So far, very few airlines have offered Wi-Fi. The most recent ones - Lufthansa and SAS - stopped last year. It will be interesting to see if other US airlines follow.

Here’s the article from BoingBoing.