A few weeks ago we carried a piece called, the New Office Space – a round up of cafes in San Francisco where Baristas brew a mean cuppa joe, and WiFi is free. This heady mix results in great ideas and cool products. Ask Kevin Burton, who has whipped together Tail Rank on a beat-up Powerbook, and sitting in cafes. The post, set-up as sequence of posts across the world. So we are bringing it all together, in what is a global cafe society. If you can put all these cafes on a Google Map, and mash it up, let me know. We could make it a “featured post” here on GigaOM. But for now, take it away JW! — Om
By Jackson West
Who’s down for an old-fashioned San Francisco Wifi Bedouin Flash Mob?
Well, it’s been a couple of weeks and I’d like to say that the response to my post on working out of coffee shops was incredibly edifying.
So I’d like to take a moment to look at some of the feedback to the post (a mention from Dave Winer and a quip from Craig Newmark certainly didn’t hurt). I speak a smattering of Spanish, French, German and Russian, and can tell the difference between my Simplified and Traditional Chinese, not to mention Hiragana versus Katakana, but lord if I have any idea what language this is. How awesome is that?
First of all, the response from bloggers outside of San Francisco was just what I think Om and I were looking for. After all, who wouldn’t want to know a great place in Portland, Maine to check in while summering on the coast? Where do the hipster nerds congregate in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Bangalore, India and Makati in the Phillipines? How about a handy map of all the Panera bread and Chili’s locations if you get tired of the food and T-Mobile service at Starbucks?
San Francisco has always had a highly transient population, which I think served it well as an example for the piece. The bedouin analogy so perfectly fits the circumstances — WiFi is to the Internet economy as water is to camels. Here in The City, I try to collect an oasis in each neighborhood so that I’m never stranded. (Except at Reverie, which at least did once have Wifi if no longer)
Oh, and where will you find me? Well, since the Wifi’s down at Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store, it’ll be at Caffe Roma, where the plugs are plentiful, the baristas cute and the Telegraph Hill Dwellers talk high finance. Plus, they roast their own beans and serve porto. But I’ll definitely be checking all your recommendations out as the opportunity arises, starting with my dad’s tips for Seattle (dude, the Philly Fevre rocks).
Cool applications: Delocator, JWire
Starbucks alternates: It’s A Grind, Panera
Reflections on the culture:
- The New Office Space: Going Bedouin
- “We Were Well-Paid Latte-Drinking Vassals”
- The Coffee House Office of the Future
- Building a virtual cubicle
- Coffee Places Are My Office Space
- Cafes as the new office
- Coffee Office
- Coffee Shops are the New Garages
- San Francisco Wifi Bedouin Flash Mob
- Forget garages coffee shops are where businesses get started
- The Office Conundrum
- New Theory of the non Starbucks Cafe: Reselling Rental
- Cafes the new garages?
- Public Space As Office Space
- Nomadic programmers
- The rise of the cafe start up
- Why pay for rent and coffee?
- Web-based Apps plus Coffee Shop equals Start-up Company
Further coffee shop recommendations for:
With Google help, I think it is Euskara (though I don’t speak it or Spanish). It is spoken in the Basque country (part of Spain and France)
Yep, looks like Basque to me.
I think the Neskafe blog is in Basque.
There is also a new project in Boston that might be of interest: http://coworking.pbwiki.com/CoworkingBoston
Yup, Basque:
http://www.codesyntax.com/bitakora/eng/blogakcom-sort-of-blogger-in-basque
San Francisco Wifi Bedouin Flash Mob?
I can just imagine someone from Alabama reading that and thinking “God is going to strike down those perverts on the west coast.”
Euskara! That is awesome. It’s funny, but right across the street from my apartment is a wifi cafe called Eguna Basque — talk about synchronicity. Should have just run the post by them. 😛
And Patrick, that is abosolutely hilarious. Like San Francisco needs another reason to be struck down by a venfeful God!
Just a quick post from the third coast; Corpus Christi, TX
Downtown – Agua Java Coffee house – good food, coffee and music.
Southside – Cafe Calypso (inside Half Priced Books – score on 2 counts!)
Uptown – Knuckleheads Restaurant (BBQ) and Biker Bar.
For Orlando, I’d like to nominate a new teahouse, Dandelion Communitea – they have free wireless, vegetarian food, and all sorts of good teas, for those of us who don’t care for coffee. http://dandelioncommunitea.com
Hi!
Would be a nice idea to make the coffee shops “Plazes” places…
http://beta.plazes.com/home/
Just my 2 (euro) cents
Greetings from Berlin/Germany
Yes! It was my Basque blog the one that pingbacked Jackson’s post here. It’s a blog with a very limited subject: coffee & cafés.
It’s interesting that suggestion to map these Cafes or New Office Spaces, but, well, there’s a Basque alternative to Plazes: Tagzania (available in English and a bunch of languages as well). So I mapped and tagged some places mentioned here with a tag New Office Space. I invite anyone to do the same. Like del.icio.us, for places, tags aggregate etc etc… For instance, these ones just In San Francisco. Enjoy!
You mention chili’s and Panera locations. I know Panera WiFi is managed by ICOA, but do you know who manages the WiFi at Chili’s? Is it free or fee?
It’ll be interesting to see who ends up taking care of the WiFi at Dunkin Donuts, OfficeMax and Staples who all have announced plans to include cafe-esque seating and WiFi in new stores. OfficeMax is actually supposed to roll out 70 of these stores already in 2006. Maybe they’ll make their announcements in 2007 as the newly designed stores’ rollout gains some momentum. It looks like most of these places are going for free WiFi. How long can Starbucks and McDonalds hold on to their fees in such an atmosphere?
Beautiful site!
Beautiful site!
Very interesting.
good site