[isf-wifidog] Fwd: new blog on location portals

[Michael Lenczner]

I sent this yesterday but it was held for moderation.  I love the
wifidog project and I hope that this project is helpful to it.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Michael Lenczner <mlenczner at gmail.com>
Date: Aug 1, 2006 2:56 PM
Subject: new blog on location portals
To: Volontaires Ile sans Fil <volontaires at listes.ilesansfil.org>,
WiFiDog Captive Portal <WiFiDog at listes.ilesansfil.org>, "Discussion
list for wirelesstoronto."
<wirelesstoronto-discuss at wirelesstoronto.ca>,
nycwireless at lists.nycwireless.net
Cc: Sascha Meinrath <sascha at ucimc.org>, Sean Savage
<seansavage at seansavage.com>, Jo Walsh <jo at frot.org>, Anthony Townsend
<atownsend at iftf.org>, Saul Albert <saul at twenteenthcentury.com>,
Michelle Kasprzak <michelle at kasprzak.ca>, marct <mt at x-i.net>, Anne
Galloway <anne at plsj.org>, Michael Longford
<longford at alcor.concordia.ca>, "Tracey P. Lauriault"
<tlauriau at magma.ca>


Hello and sorry for the cross-postings.

I've been working with Ile Sans Fil and our FOSS project WifiDog for 3
years now.  Our goal was always to use our wireless infrastructure to
support local communities *beyond* getting them access to the
internet.  Transforming the captive portal into a location portal
always was a large part of that achieving that goal.

There's been some great work since then - notably Jo Walsh's work for
WirelessLondon and Sean Savages PlaceSite, as well as Wireless
Toronto's application of WifiDog - but there is a lot more potential
in this particular user interaction.  I've just started a blog devoted
to the subject of location portals - how to build them, how to
intelligently discuss and criticize them.  Over the next couple of
months I'll be reviewing the existing applications and visions as well
as asking some of the people working in this area to share their
thoughts - either in one-off's or as permanent guest-bloggers.

I look forward to discussing these questions with those of you who are
interested.  I think some more attention and collaboration on this
specific question can have an important impact on the CWN movement, as
well as simply improving another worthwhile tool for mobile (and
remote) users.

http://www.locationportals.net

michael lenczner