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OR EMAILBedouins In San Francisco
Pretty neat article on SFGate (San Francisco Chronicle) about “bedouins” - Internet employees with laptops that bounce between WiFi enabled cafes, always on the move, to the point where some don’t rent offices for the companies they’re creating. I’ll add this term to my weblogisms page and chalk up another vote for a “boom” this year.
Some names familiar to tech bloggers appear in this article: Kevin Burton of Tailrank, and Om Malik of GigaOm. The featured cafes are Ritual Roasters, Coffee to the People, Starbucks, and the venerable Caffe Trieste.
Bubble warning: An entrepreneur feels guilty for using WiFi often, but not buying a lot of coffee or food. He hopes to give the cafe some stock options when his startup incorporates. Echoes of options for rent during Web 1.0 come to mind.
Still, it’s the type of article that for anybody who works in a cubicle (me), makes one mutter, “I’d like some of that,” inspiring delusions of blogging full time or relocating to the Bay Area (I must mention that wanting to mooch WiFi while drinking coffee is the wrong reason to do either).
As for me, I’m still waiting for the free municipal WiFi projects for San Francisco, CalTrain, and San Mateo. And my free WiFi haven is the San Mateo library.
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It’s all about having the right kind of cubicle.
I have a coffee machine beside my desk that lets me make lattes and cappuccinos.
Yeah I enjoyed that article. We’ve hit Ritual with some frequency and are now going to the local cafe, Canvas (9th and Lincoln next to Golden Gate park) twice a week. It’s a good change of pace from the apartment we work out of.
I’ve always been amazed by how many folks work out of these cafes doing startups or working as freelancers. We’ve seen whole companies take over corners of the cafe and basically run all day meetings in their “conference room”. There are always dudes doing interviews and hiring too. And it’s almost always the same cast of characters over and over.
I think the article nailed the “wifi guilt” just right. We call it “paying rent”, but even then the rent we pay is kinda weak. I might buy a coffee or a tea for a 3-4 hour stint. Sometimes I’ll buy lunch. Some folks you look over and they’re eating outside food and/or just drinking the water. It’s kind of ridiculous.
I also thought it was funny that they talk about the scarcity of electrical outlets to deter squatters. My solution is to bring an extension cord and a power strip. All the other laptop users always love that cuz then we can all plug in to one outlet
The downside to all of this is that poor Canvas cafe is closing down in a little more than a month. I can’t help but feel like all of us laptop users were partially responsible. It also makes me wonder where all these workers are going to go…b/c those other places already profiled in the Chron are always full too.
Oh, and you also start using sites like hotspotr.com to get the lowdown on who’s got the reliable and free wifi:
http://hotspotr.com/wifi/map/1-san-francisco-ca
Dave - yeah I wondered if you guys were doing the cafe thing since you mentioned hanging in one last time. Now I’m wondering if the SF wifi ever happens, what will that mean for the cafes? I’m sure the cafes will have higher bandwidth though.
If the boom really takes off maybe a future business model is to set up a Wifi cafe with free coffee