Okay, I may have got my fast food chain advertising slogans mixed up.
But it makes a good point about the free Wi-Fi at every McDonald's
story. And that's this - fast food and your good old laptop don't
really make the best bedfellows.
Let me take a similar scenario from my drawer marked 'experience'.
Every time my brother comes over for a drinking session he comes back
to my flat with a stinking kebab. This is fine, but then he wants to
go online - getting his greasy fingers all over my trusty laptop.
You can see where I'm going with this.
Added to which, McDonald's demographic hardly reflects the
laptop-touting road warrior. Need somewhere for that pre-meeting
coffee? Hmm, let me think - Starbucks or McDonald's? However,
McDonald's is making a lot more of its alternative food options and,
more importantly for people with laptops, coffee. See, coffee and
Wi-Fi hotspots are inextricably linked. Like Terry and June and
Morcombe and Wise, they're a match buried deep within the social
fabric of Britain.
AdvertisementCoffee is the catalyst for a large portion of the
paid-for hotspots in the country. That's why there is also Wi-Fi in a
large majority of chain pubs, such as those owned by JD Wetherspoon.
They want to attract the day crowd. Wi-Fi is also in a huge number of
other pubs buried inside those multiple games machines. Played Who
Wants to Be A Millionaire? Or Deal or No Deal? You were playing on the
thing that provides the wireless hotspot.
And that could be where it's going to become rather interesting.
Say a relatively innovative company like Wetherspoons looks at the
McDonald's deal and says "we'll do free Wi-Fi" too - the chain
reaction could be enormous. Could we really see free Wi-Fi across the
high street in a few years time? Quite possibly, and hats off to
McDonald's for starting it all off. We probably just need one other
major player to jump on the bandwagon - and then the ball really could
start rolling.
Originally posted at http://www.tech.co.uk/
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