I have a confession to make: a few months ago I glimpsed into the future and decided not to tell anyone about it. I wanted to keep all the mind-blowing revelations for my company and myself even though it could have benefited just about everyone in online marketing. If I was a cast member on the tv show Lost, I would have been Sawyer, keeping all the good tidbits for myself, minus the scruffy beard. The point is, I didn’t want to tell anyone about how I met with a local WISP (wireless internet service provider) to consult on how advertising could be implemented into their bid process for install jobs in townships, stadiums, and marinas throughout the country. That one consulting gig gave me a glimpse into ‘the next big publishing partner’ our industry would see develop over the next 8 to 14 months. That was a few months ago, but just last week, Google spilled the beans about their intentions to ‘WISP’ San Fran for free, right after Philadelphia announced EarthLink would be getting cash for their municipal WISP job. The secret was out: Major metro areas are about to go totally wireless, totally free, and the only thing consumers have to do to surf the net, is view, you guessed it, advertising.
There is plenty to be excited and wary about in regards to the new WISP landscape if you’re an Internet marketer. First you should know the good theoretical forecast: in exchange for free broadband access, consumers are going to be more receptive to the ads displayed on their laptop or PDA. Every WISP tech setup is different, but most require the consumer 'log-in' through a gateway, which essentially, is just a webpage that can host ads. It can host banner ads, it can host streaming media, and it can host ad-ware. It can do it all. Tens of thousands of consumers are going to be logging in, for free, in exchange for receiving ads, city-wide, stadium-wide, and cruising-in-their-boats-wide. Now, to really be cutting edge, all you have to do as a savvy internet marketer is secure your ‘exclusive publisher contract’ – before all the WISPs get slammed by CPA affiliate managers asking them to run banner ads.
Sounds pretty good, right? The implications are astounding. Apparently so much so that telecoms have already lobbied in several states making it ILLEGAL for WISPs to be funded for a myriad of reasons - ranging from "don’t use taxpayers money to fund your free public WISP" to "unlawful competition". I think I can make the analogy that outlawing WISP is akin to outlawing free newspapers. Maybe it’s a stretch, but holding back communities from broadband access because of ‘unlawful competition’ is ridiculous. Isn’t this America? (And yes, I apologize for using that cliché’ in this rant, but it really seemed appropriate.) When did competition in industry become a bad thing? I'm not good with the legalese, but here’s an editorial piece that touches upon the cynicism and mood of how most techies (and I’d wager people in general) feel regarding the current corporate telecom players who fear free WISP and the states where laws have already been passed against them:
http://eprairie.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterID=11626 (scroll down to mid-page article)
I can go on and on why telecom would want to limit WISP development - but this isn't the place to do it. Here’s a much better place to see all the action and down and dirty industry tech talk:
www.wispcentric.com
Or if you’re in Santa Clara, and are reading this early enough in the day, and feel like going to a tradeshow, this is killer (for everyone else, I guess there’s always next year):
www.ispcon.com
Finally, if you want to see a linked up page that will branch out your awareness of WISP, sans branches, check this out:
http://www.dailywireless.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3333
(The above link, even lists a good number of municipalities that are planning WISP deployment, so you can find their local provider and hit them up for ad serving.)
Now that I’ve empowered you, dear reader, with the insider lowdown on the WISP world benefits and controversies, I have one last confessional thought to leave you: did anyone ever see those Terminator movies with the guy who also plays the Governor of California? Do you remember the plot had something to do with a computer like thing that controlled America and then it went crazy and decided to kill all the humans? Yeah? Well, I was thinking, maybe that could be Google. Maybe it just starts by offering free WISP service in a big city filled with lots of people who could use it. Maybe that’s why Ma-Bell is lobbying against it. To protect us. That or maybe telecom knows that free WISP could be the best darn thing to happen since free newspapers and they want to control it. Oh wait - newspapers generally aren’t free unless they’re filled with ads. Oh! …Maybe that makes telecom the Terminator?
I’ll be back with more ad industry ramblings and predictions, in a future issue of DMConfidential, or you can check out my blog at www.tiafix.com. >^,,^<
Tia Fix works for PrimaryAds Inc., a leading CPA Affiliate network. She thinks CPA is the way of the future and wants you to know that the opinions expressed here are entirely her own and do not reflect those of anyone else, most likely, because they’re generally sort of cutting edge, or at least slightly dull. For more information she can be contacted at tia@primaryads.com or AIM: tiafix, and be sure to check out www.primaryads.com if you’re interested in joining their network.
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