A Tool to Wake Up Wi-Fi Zombies 

SAN FRANCISCO -- Sean Savage wants to hook you up by tearing you away from the internet.

The one-time promoter of flash mobs is once again waging battle against digital alienation with a new tool aimed at getting Wi-Fi cafe "zombies" to look up and smell the coffee. The problem: Computers are fabulous at connecting people over a long distance, but they can become a wall between people who are sitting right next to each other.

At the O'Reilly Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco last week, Savage announced his latest project, PlaceSite, which combines online social networking with real-life networking in Wi-Fi cafes by providing computer users with a website unique to a particular Wi-Fi cafe.

"We thought about what if you could use technology to reduce the zombie effect or to promote (people) to be more conscious and less alienated from their neighbors," Savage said.

Wi-Fi users in a certain cafe would encounter a login window when they first sign on, which would prompt them to enter a Friendster-like profile that would let other cafe dwellers know when they were in that cafe.

The login window is set up using customized open-source software, based on WifiDog, installed on a Linksys WRT54G router.

Savage ran a trial of PlaceSite at the A Cuppa Tea coffee shop in Berkeley, California, in April 2005. He says PlaceSite will begin rolling out at a few locations in the San Francisco Bay Area by October.

PlaceSite for cafes will remain free, but Savage hopes to sell larger and more complex versions for conferences.

Savage, who recently graduated with his Master's from UC Berkeley, along with his two Berkeley classmates, Jon Snydal and Damon McCormick, has drawn the attention of academics and authors who study online communities.

Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, is encouraged by PlaceSite's promise and has given some advice to Savage and his colleagues.

"It's a conversation starter; if it works it's because it gives people an excuse to start a conversation," he said. "Will they or not is the question, but I think it's really just using the familiarity that people have with their online tools to talk to each other face to face."

More stories written by Cyrus Farivar