AnchorFree Blog

AnchorFree and Improved Geotargeting
Screenwerk - Greg Sterling blog

I spoke with AnchorFree this morning about their hotspot ad network. The company says its current footprint represents:

* 10,000 locations
* 400,000,000 page views per month
* 5,400,000 user sessions per month

Primarily at hotels, airports and cafes, the company serves banner ads that can be demographically, contextually and locally targeted. Peter Krasilovsky has some additional detail.

The company is something of a middleware provider that serves ads but doesn’t offer the access itself. Accordingly, one of the big challenges that we discussed was getting the existing providers of wireless Internet access to change their model and either reduce fees or eliminate them. AnchorFree EVP Mark Smith said that consumer usage goes way up when the service is free, which makes sense of course.

Right now the company works with existing ad networks like Specific Media and Yahoo! to provide banners. Geotargeted ads come mostly from national entities with local stores.

Beyond this what’s interesting is that AnchorFree’s geotargeting capability, because it’s WiFi, is down to the address. Reverse IP technology varies in its accuracy but doesn’t offer that kind of precision. Mobile is the other arena in which highly accurate location targeting is available (for example, Google’s My Location service).

This is one of the themes in local for 2008: greatly improved location awareness and targeting.

AnchorFree Seeks to Provide Wi-Fi at Local Stores and Services
By Peter Krasilovsky, The ClickZ Network

AnchorFree, an ad-supported Wi-Fi service, says it is seeking to add additional verticals to its hotel and coffee shop strongholds. The company, which has raised $6 million and already has 10,000 locations and 5.4 million user sessions a month, wants to serve locations “wherever people wait,” says Executive Vice President Mark Smith. “Auto dealerships, restaurants, doctors waiting rooms … ”

Smith notes that the company also serves 15 airports via its partners, and 26 marinas and yacht clubs. In addition, it is looking to enhance its retail presence, and is installing a “few new outdoor shopping malls in the Bay Area.” This segment is also targeted for localized cellphone advertising — perhaps an adjacent business — by NearbyNow.

The key to the company’s business model is to install routers in heavily trafficked locations where owners are responsible for arranging their own data connections. The routers cost $37 and installation is roughly $100. Smith says it generally takes just a few months of advertising to earn back the sunk costs.

This assumes, however, that locations have at least 10,000 page views. The average coffee shop gets about 7,500 page views, so break-even takes longer. Meanwhile, the average hotel gets more than 100,000 — with some getting many multiples above that.

While AnchorFree has aggressively launched, it is in a competitive space. It also can’t require location owners to provide the service for free; it can only recommend it. But the service is differentiated by the appeal of its advertising, says Smith. Other companies only provide advertising on the landing page. AnchorFree has ad spaces built into every page, and can even deliver a multipage ad series.

The ads on the network, however, are not especially local. There is a heavy dependence on national ad networks, remnant ads, etc. Looking forward, Smith says he definitely wants to see more local targeting. The company is currently in discussions with local media companies to act as resellers. Since locations are precisely targetable, a flower seller in Rockefeller Center, for instance, could theoretically buy an ad for the three-block radius.

Ad-Supported Wi-Fi: Back to Basics
By Anna Maria Virzi, The ClickZ Network

Ever notice when you absolutely need Wi-Fi service, there’s none to be found — even in bustling Manhattan? Consider a visitor’s trip to Greenwich Village in mid-October; paid Wi-Fi service at McDonald’s was down, and wireless access at the Washington Square Starbucks was limited to people affiliated with New York University. Instead of a hotspot, the visitor got only a cold shoulder.

With news of several ad-supported Wi-Fi initiatives, there’s hope access will improve in metro areas. Even though it’s too soon to tell if these ventures will be viable, they show promise because they’re built on lessons learned from those who’ve stumbled before them.

CBS said last month it’s bringing ad-supported Wi-Fi to the CBS Mobile Zone, a 20-block area spanning from Manhattan’s Times Square to Central Park in a six-month trial. CBS Outdoor billboards, 5 to 50 feet above the ground, and New York City Transit-owned panels or digital signs, located above subway station entrances, have been fitted with transmitters. CBS is providing free or low-cost routers to local businesses so customers can access the Internet.

In another venture, AnchorFree, based in Sunnyvale, CA, has developed an ad network and service that enables hotels, coffee shops, and other businesses to offer ad-supported Wi-Fi service. As of early December, AnchorFree was providing its service to about 700 locations and had contracts with another 9,300 in the pipeline. Advertisers include Ford, American Express, TripAdvisor, and Whataburger.

For advertisers, these initiatives promise the ability to serve up ads based on location. It will be the ultimate in hyper-local advertising — if it works.

Plenty of skeptics wonder if it will. “CBS Outdoor is an advertising sales organization that’s using this experimental outdoor network as another means for creating electronic billboards. It’s a nice experiment. I don’t know if it’s a business,” says Berge Ayvazian, chief strategy officer at Yankee Group, a consultancy.

Recent history hasn’t been kind to large-scale community Wi-Fi projects. Most notable: EarthLink’s decision to dump plans for a Wi-Fi network it was to develop with Google in San Francisco. Google continues to operate a Wi-Fi network in its hometown of Mountain View, CA, which is free to all city residents and businesses.

A project launched in November 2006 to roll out an ad-supported Wi-Fi network in Portland, OR, appears to be at a crossroads. MetroFi, the company building out the service and an ad network, reportedly said it was seeking additional funding from its investors or the city, according to one blogger writing on OregonLive.com.

Advertising can only cover a small portion of the costs to provide high-quality Wi-Fi, says Dan Lowden, VP of business development and marketing at Wayport. The Irving, TX, company manages over 12,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, including those found at McDonald’s. “Through ads, you can cover a small portion of that cost. It helps, but in our view it’s more of a complement, not a way to fund the whole network,” he says. Wayport’s clients typically charge for Wi-Fi access, though some hotels offer it free to guests.

Why are CBS and AnchorFree still betting on ad-supported Wi-Fi despite these challenges? Here are a few reasons.

Love That iPhone

Even Lowden says more people on Wayport’s wireless network are accessing the Web via the iPhone and other devices. “We see lots of iPhone traffic on our network, plus more and more consumer devices — gaming devices, phones, cameras,” he says.

“The Wall Street Journal” backs up Wayport’s experience: iPhone owners were responsible for nearly 1 of every 1,000 Web page views last month, the newspaper said.

As such, CBS and others are anticipating outdoor mobile use will increase. “We’re preparing ourselves for the future,” explains Cyriac Roeding, EVP at CBS Mobile.

Updating Approaches

Ad-supported Wi-Fi networks typically serve an ad on the landing page. “Our brief history doing this reveals that ‘landing page’ advertising alone simply doesn’t even get close to paying for the infrastructure/maintenance costs associated with supporting Wi-Fi access,” writes Mark Smith, AnchorFree’s EVP strategy and products. As a result, the company inserts ads on subsequent pages as well, showing 60 ad pages on average to each user.

In another twist, CBS designed its landing page to look like a social network and city guide. It’s partnered with Ning to create a social network and with Yelp to obtain user-generated reviews of restaurants and other businesses in the mobile zone.

Smaller Is Better

While the San Francisco project’s troubles have gotten lots of attention, far smaller endeavors in suburban downtown areas are taking off with modest price tags, some as low as $15,000 to $20,000, says Joanne Hovis, president of Columbia Telecommunications Corp. (CTC), a consulting firm that provides communications engineering services to public sector and nonprofit clients. “In a targeted, small-scale way, [Wi-Fi] is a very flexible, inexpensive, and quick technology. Targeted hot spots or hot zones that build incrementally are one of the directions we see in the future,” she says.

In launching its mobile zone, CBS maintained a tight budget and a six-month schedule to roll out 20 hot spots. “We’ve done this on a start-up budget,” Roeding says, declining to disclose costs for labor, hardware, and software.

It’s All About Location

The value of commercial and residential real estate is tied to its location. So too are ad-supported Wi-Fi projects.

Take CBS Mobile Zone in midtown Manhattan. “That’s probably one of the most desirable markets in the country, if not the world,” says Hovis. While an ad-supported model shows potential for this region, Hovis is skeptical about its viability if it were to be rolled out citywide.

Challenges persist. “Like any emerging ad network, we have all the same challenges in third-party measurement and accountability,” says AnchorFree’s Smith. Plus, Wi-Fi providers must compete with an increasing — and perplexing — number of advertising venues, from social networks to the digital displays now found in taxi cabs.

Mobile Products to Watch in 2008, Part 1
PC World

As tempting as Apple’s iPhone and Amazon.com’s Kindle are, I’ve refrained from buying them. Why? Because I’m certain these first-generation products will be significantly better in their second iterations.

Several intriguing products debuted or were announced in 2007. Here’s a look back at some of them–as well as a look forward at what’s likely to be their second-generation models.
Apple’s iPhone

I had my reasons for not buying the first iPhone. Price was one–the initial $599 cost for the 8GB model felt like extortion. Of course, Apple lowered the price to $399 about two months after the iPhone’s introduction, which prompted some justifiable outrage. That incident alone is an excellent example of why you should think twice about buying a first-gen product.

Other turn-offs for me: The iPhone uses AT&T’s slow EDGE network for cellular wireless Internet connections, as opposed to the company’s faster 3G network; it has only 8GB of storage, which is a lot for a phone, but not much for a portable media player; there’s a paucity of third-party applications; the device can’t record video recording; and AT&T is the sole iPhone provider in the U.S.

A second-gen iPhone, expected in 2008, is likely to address many of these concerns. AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson has already announced that a 3G iPhone would be forthcoming in 2008, though he didn’t give a specific date.

It stands to reason the next iPhone will also offer more storage capacity. And some rumors are circulating online that Apple will refresh the first-gen iPhone during the first half of 2008 with more memory.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has already announced the company will release a software developer’s kit in February 2008, to encourage third parties to develop native apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

As for video recording, there’s been no official word. But several unofficial efforts are already under way to add this feature to current iPhones. Take a look at a video on Traveler 2.0.

Regarding the iPhone’s ties to AT&T, Apple reportedly signed a multi-year exclusivity agreement with the wireless carrier, so we aren’t likely to see iPhones for Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile anytime soon. But the iPhone has aroused consumer unrest around the whole business of cell phone companies locking devices to work only on their own networks.

Meanwhile, Google–a champion of “open access” networks–is developing a mobile phone platform to compete with Apple’s. Google is also expected to bid on blocks of the wireless 700-MHz spectrum that the FCC is auctioning beginning on January 24. According to the FCC’s rules, whoever licenses this spectrum must allow any devices to connect to their network.
Amazon.com’s Kindle

Amazon.com took a leap forward with its $399 Kindle e-book reader. The device, introduced in November, allows you to wirelessly download e-books from Amazon.com using Sprint’s 3G network. No contracts or charges are required to use the network. You can also pay to subscribe to Kindle-compatible versions of newspapers, magazines, and blogs, which are automatically downloaded to the device. If you haven’t seen a Kindle, take a look at our video.

The Kindle has much to recommend, says our reviewer, Melissa J. Perenson. But there are some design flaws that, if Amazon.com is smart, will disappear in the second-gen device. Among them: The Kindle can be slow to respond to button presses, such as when you flip ahead several pages; it has a monochrome-only screen; and the navigation software is straightforward has some search limitations.

For its second act, I’m hoping the Kindle will offer a color screen, a lower price ($250 to $300 for an e-book reader feels more reasonable), and faster response to buttons. Also, some reviewers have complained it’s too easy to accidentally press the page-forward and back buttons–another design issue that should be addressed.

Check back next week for three more products to watch for in 2008.
Further Exploration

* “iPhone Lawsuit Seeks Over $1 Billion in Damages”
* “Outcry Wins AT&T and Verizon Customers the Right to Gripe”
* “Travel Accessories for the iPod and iPhone”

Mobile Computing News, Reviews, & Tips

Geek Chic Wi-Fi T-Shirt: Though it’s too late for Christmas, Think Geek’s black Wi-Fi Detector T-shirt ($30) could certainly make a gag gift. The shirt has blue bars on the front that illuminate when you’re near a wireless network. The stronger the signal, the more bars that light up. The detector can be removed for washing and is powered by three AAA batteries. Just remember to turn off your T-shirt when you go to the movies.

Enhancing and Securing a Wi-Fi Network: Our “In Pictures” guide will help you get more out of a Wi-Fi connection, whether it’s at home, office, or on the road. Example: Public hotspots are notoriously unsecured. If you use them often, consider downloading and installing AnchorFree’s free Hotspot Shield virtual private network software.

Tech Gear Coming Soon: PC World Contributing Editor Dan Tynan gazes into the crystal ball and sees more devices than ever connecting to the Internet, a la the iPod Touch and Archos 605 media players and the Chumby. What’s that, you ask? You need to see for yourself.

Away From Big Cities, The Mobile Internet can be Hard to Reach
By Jermy Wagstaff, Wall Street Journal

I’m writing this in my Aunt Gertrude’s house in the wilderness that is British suburbia. Amid the prewar furniture and knitted bedspreads is a sprawl of SIM cards, packaging, user manuals, cellphones and cables — the latest front in my battle to get connected far from home without spending a fortune.

Getting connected to the Web in a big city is relatively easy. Eateries with cheap or free WiFi connections abound. Cities like Singapore aim to cloak themselves in ubiquitous, free WiFi in the next few years. Until then, and in between hot spots, small USB modems that connect at third-generation speeds fill the gap. But go to smaller or more remote places and you can face the same problem as with cellphone roaming: It’s expensive.

So what to do? Well, the most obvious haven is a WiFi hot spot. WiFi has exploded. Three years ago I wandered around a Northampton suburb with my laptop looking for networks and found only hostile looks. Now I’m getting a dozen WiFi signals without leaving my bedroom. The world is awash in WiFi.

But all are password-protected. (I repeated the experiment in three countries with the same results.) This is a good thing. When WiFi arrived most networks were open by default, leaving owners vulnerable to strangers like me piggybacking on their connection, or to bad people hacking into their hard drives to send spam or cyber-attack Estonia.

The other problem with WiFi is that it’s still regarded as a commercial service in its own right. I was shocked to find the only WiFi available in Heathrow’s business-class lounges costs a princely $15 for a couple of hours. A nearby hotel also charges. I would have thought by now a decent — free — Internet connection would be part of the deal for business travelers and hotel guests.

Still, there are other options. WiFi roaming services, which allow you to access local networks using your account back home, are now quite common in airports and elsewhere. Boingo and iPass are two of the best known, but unless you’re a regular traveler they’re not cheap. Boingo’s global service, for example, costs $10 a day , unless you sign up for the $40 monthly plan.

There are cheaper ways to get into these networks, however. If you have a broadband Internet account you may already have access; Singapore’s SingNet, for example, gives its subscribers a free iPass account (tinyurl.com/25zn5×1) with login charges of about $3 a month and 30 cents a minute usage. Still, that can run into money for a heavy user or slow surfer.

Better is Singapore’s StarHub, which offers subscribers a free WiFi roaming package to its mobile, broadband or even TV services. This is provided by the Wireless Broadband Alliance, a grouping of mobile carriers. I noticed StarHub on several WiFi sign-in pages on recent travels. Information on the package wasn’t easy to find on StarHub’s Web site, though.

Another option is FON (fon.com2), whose members agree to share their WiFi in return for access to other members’ WiFi. Started in Europe, it’s won converts around the world: There’s one a couple of streets away from my Singapore home, and one a couple of kilometers south of Aunt Gertrude’s. AnchorFree (www.anchorfree.com3) is another newly launched service that offers free WiFi access, this one subsidized by ads.

But none of this helps much when you’re not in the center of town, which brings me back to the SIM cards on the bedspread. I’ve gotten used to these USB modems that slot into my laptop and allow 3.5G connections on a bus. But while they’re cheap enough in the service provider’s locale, roaming gets expensive (from $2 to $10 per megabyte). You might find special deals depending on where you’re going, and things may change in Asia after the Conexus Mobile Alliance (www.conexusmobile.com4) of seven Asian operators launches its flat-rate tariff for data roaming next year. This, I believe, is the future — at least until the whole planet is one big hot spot.

In the meantime I feel it should be possible to use prepaid SIM cards — designed primarily for voice as connections — for data. Vodafone indeed offers a service for a HSDPA modem that costs about $20 per 24 hours of more or less unlimited usage. Not cheap, but at least it’s portable and would work even in the ‘burbs — but you need a U.K. address and bank account to sign up.

So I started digging around the terms and conditions of voice prepaid cards. Vodafone, it turns out, offers prepaid cellphone users up to 15 megabytes of data traffic a day for about $2. (More than that costs about $4 per megabyte.)

That might be reasonable for people accessing the Web and email on their cellphone, but for someone using a laptop, I found to my cost, 15 megabytes doesn’t go far. Google by cellphone is a mini version of the search engine’s homepage, as is its email service, Gmail. Same if you download Google’s special application for Symbian-based mobile phones. It’s just the basics — none of the flashy graphics, or other bits that run alongside your usual Web page. Other applications, like Seven Networks’ new Symbian-based email software, further reduce traffic by compressing the data.

But while I check my email from my cellphone just like any BlackBerry user, I don’t think this replaces a session on the laptop, where you’re able to read more than a few lines at a time, reread any prior discussion of the subject and double check your facts via the Web before crafting a reply.

For me, the mobile Internet is when I can hook up my laptop to the net on the road. So I plugged my 3.5G phone into my laptop, fiddled with some settings and hey Presto! I was online. But however much I tried — suspending all background activities like email checking, Skype, automatic software and antivirus updates, blocking browser images etc. — the data transfer clock ticked through those 15 megabytes within minutes. Vodafone gave me three SIM cards as a “family offer,” so I bought credit on each and tried switching between them to pump my daily allowance up to 45 megabytes. To no avail; I’d barely started surfing before I hit the 15 megabyte limit on all three. The gap between WiFi hot spot and expensive roaming data, it seems, still needs to be plugged.

My advice? Do your homework before a trip, and sign up for — and configure on your laptop — as many of these services as you can. Or fall back on the tried and trusted dial-up. It’s slow, and ties up the phone line, but it works. Me? I’m getting in the car and heading south.