Who are the lucky 7?
Troy, Birmingham, Royal Oak, Madison Heights, Pontiac, Oak Park and Wixom.
Why are they the lucky 7?
These are the 7 cities that will be providing free wireless connections to their businesses, residents, and visitors by the end of year.
How will the lucky 7 affect small businesses?
Once free wireless is available to everyone on phones, PDAs, and laptops in these cities, the way people search for businesses is going to change. Once these cities go wireless it it going to become much easier for people to grab their phone or PDA and use Google’s phone search to find a business than to open the yellow pages or get referrals. Need to order some flowers for a friend’s birthday? Turn on your phone, type in “flower delivery rochester mi” see what comes up. Dial the number on your phone and place your order. Are you a businessman on the road, looking for someplace to take your clients to eat for lunch? Turn on the Palm, search for “Indian food Troy Mi” in google, get the number, call and make the reservation.
You get my point. People won’t access multiple sources of information once they can search and implement their desires all on the same device.
January 18th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
[...] Here is an update to a post I wrote last November when I wrote a post on the Lucky 7, the 7 cities in Oakland County that were going to get free wireless internet. Well, it is STARTING to happen — a little late — but at least they are getting started. Troy seems to be Lucky Number 1 because it is up and running in at least part of the city. There are mixed reports on speed, but I think it is at least a start. [...]