Brad Templeton’s got a neat idea — add geotagging and semantics to WiFi hotspots:
It would contain a mixed XML/HTML packet with a variety of useful fields and general text. These could range from simple descriptions (“This access point belongs to Joe Smith, I’m a programmer”) to information (“On this site, Paul Revere stopped on his ride to consult with local minutemen”) to street directions (“Turn right to get to highway 101, left for downtown”) to, of course, advertising (“We sell fresh fruit and have a special on plums today.”)
In other words, a replacement for signs and billboards and markers. And perhaps much more. Access points would also talk about themselves, declaring, for example, if the owner is offering open internet access for free or for fee, or has a local database of information, and what class of information is in the main text. The local lattitude and longitude for those without a GPS could be useful, along with local maps data in a compact form.
(Thanks, Brad!)
Update: Felix sez, “plazes is collaborative geo-tagging of networks, not just WiFi but any LAN. Unique identifier is the router´s MAC ID. In addition to structured data like address and type of network, people can upload pics and comments for that plaze/network. Every network gets a linkable URL and right now, we are working on a RDF representation of the geodata.”