Comments on: McWiFi Meal

McWiFi Meal

Stuart_R — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 08:54:56 -0800

McDonald's restaurants in three U.S. cities will offer one hour of free high-speed access to anyone who buys a combination meal. Bookstores, Hotels and Airports are also planning to offer Wireless access to customers.

By: Stuart_R

Stuart_R — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 08:58:43 -0800

Link courtesy of boingboing.net. It's hard to imagine a McDonalds full of people using laptops to check their email. Wouldn't it also encourage people to hang around, even though they've finished their "food" - with fewer tables for people interested in eating?

By: wondergirl

wondergirl — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 09:11:40 -0800

the hope is that people will order more food. however, working at a barnes & noble with both a cafe and a student study section that are always filled with college students, i have doubts that it will work.

By: UlfMagnet

UlfMagnet — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 09:14:16 -0800

Ewwwww... greasy keyboards!

By: RylandDotNet

RylandDotNet — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 09:16:51 -0800

Even assuming I was willing to bring a laptop into McDonald's, it's usually too damned noisy in there to concentrate.

By: tranquileye

tranquileye — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 09:17:08 -0800

Instead, McDonald's should provide access to nutritious, good tasting food. This is typical of the restaurant: the wrong thing for the wrong audience, and no idea of how to change.

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 09:21:34 -0800

McDonalds seems willing to try just. about. anything these days to reverse their slide into irrelevancy. Oh, anything, that is, except a nationally-supported veggie burger.

By: Bag Man

Bag Man — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 09:22:45 -0800

I went to an internet Cafe in Munich where you got 1 hour free of internet time with the purchase of pizza. I like that and this sounds like a good idea, but I agree with UlfMagnet to some extent. the wrong thing for the wrong audience Not for me. I surf web and I like McDonalds.

By: Mick

Mick — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 09:23:25 -0800

I think it was Doc Searls who said Wi-Fi will soon be like bathrooms, people will expect it to be provided free to customers.

By: Slithy_Tove

Slithy_Tove — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 09:23:35 -0800

Whoa. 11 megabits/s? I can see McDonalds' turning into lan parties. Fragging and fries. Can't beat it. In other news... Geeks deemed 'unhealthiest US population', says Surgeon General. One in three is diabetic, new report shows Heart disease and stroke take major toll on computer-using population

By: ralawrence

ralawrence — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 09:48:38 -0800

Oh, anything, that is, except a nationally-supported veggie burger. I'm confused, why would a veggie burger help McDonalds fortunes given the extremely small percentage of people who this would appeal to?

By: tr33hggr

tr33hggr — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 09:50:58 -0800

What soyjoy said. And even if they did (re)introduce a veggie burger, I will never give one more cent to the McDeath corporation. /snark soyjoy always beats me to it!

By: Frank Grimes

Frank Grimes — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 10:07:19 -0800

If you supersize do you get an hour and fifteen minutes?

By: ed

ed — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 10:22:00 -0800

Yes, but will they validate parking? Sorry, but no. Puke-yellow Formica tables can only be cleaned so much. I would sooner put my head in a vat of porridge than endure the stinky, greasy atmosphere of a McDonald's nightmare. Perhaps this is part of the great conspiracy to take out the geek population.

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 10:24:40 -0800

ralawrence, I think you'll find a larger demographic clamoring for a veggie burger (now a standard item in mid-level restaurants like diners) than clamoring for all-white meat Chicken McNuggets. But I could be wrong.

By: Vidiot

Vidiot — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 10:30:49 -0800

I used a kiosk-type terminal at a McDonald's in southern France last month -- you bought a card with a PIN (covered by a scratch-off coating) for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour. You could save what time you hadn't used, too, which was nice. It was an easy and good way to check my e-mail on the road. (note to McD's bashers: I only went in there because I was craving a soda with ice.)

By: betobeto

betobeto — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 10:39:45 -0800

Actually, a veggie burger doesn't seem like a farfetched concept - specially on these times where most people are carrying on the "healthy food" bandwagon. Sure a McVeggie would, after all, be as healthy as a grease-laden plate of pork chops, but that's where McMarketing comes in of course. We've had kiosk-type McD's who offer internet (non-WiFi) access for years. It probably will take some more to see that coming in here. McD's in France? I thought there were barely surviving in there.

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 10:54:32 -0800

i would eat a McD's veggie burger if it were a last option, i.e. rest stop on a road trip surrounded by all meat choices. but i'd much rather have Waffle House and i agree with Mick. despite all the mighty forces aligned against it, free broadband wireless shouldn't be that far away.

By: machaus

machaus — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 10:54:40 -0800

I think it was Cory that once floated the notion of turning "growing more quaint by the day" payphones into 802.11 hotspots. They already have the wiring and power requirements. What an easy way to provide a wireless infrastructure to urban people on the go. Charge $10 a month to register your MAC address and rake in the dough.

By: archimago

archimago — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 11:55:52 -0800

Ah, the all-white-meat McNugget, an idea whose time has come. Notice the fine print in the commercials. I would like to know the ratio of chicken skin to actual white meat that is processed into those little golden morsels of nuggety goodness.

By: nofundy

nofundy — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 12:57:43 -0800

I can't wait for my happ e-mail. Watch out for the McPacket loss. If you don't brush afterwards, you get blue tooth. Hacked by the hamburglar.

By: gluechunk

gluechunk — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 13:10:03 -0800

I've never had it, but a know of non-veggie people who seem to like the BK Veggie.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 16:22:36 -0800

Actually the burgers are not as bad as the buns which are made out of all sorts of weird chemical arrangements.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 16:25:46 -0800

McDonalds bun ingredients. alpha amylase, mono- and diglycerides, propionic acid, phosphoric acid, calcium sulfate, ammonium chloride, monocalcium phosphate, ascorbic acid, azodicarbomide, corn flour, soy flour, potato flour, calcium peroxide, diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides, ethoxylated mono- and diglycerides, silicon dioxide, sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate, fungal enzymes, emulsifiers, sodium or calcium propionate (as a preservative), sesame seeds. ummm fungal enzymes are higher on the list than sesame seeds.

By: Mars Saxman

Mars Saxman — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 16:59:52 -0800

The truly unfortunate thing about this arrangement is that it pushes that awful term "WiFi" further toward common awareness and acceptance. It's less pronounceable and certainly no less cryptic than the simple technical term it is supposed to replace. Let's hope the McDonalds' advertising just calls it "wireless Internet access".

By: rhyax

rhyax — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 17:22:31 -0800

um, that ingredient list is scary! fungal enzymes are weird, I'd like to know which ones, but silicon dioxide is sand. azodicarbomide is incidentally a bleaching agent.

By: dmjavier

dmjavier — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 23:32:53 -0800

I could maybe see the success of pulling a venture like this at a Starbucks or even a Barnes & Noble, but in McDonalds? I think it's a bit of a stretch to think it might drastically increase their business. How viable does everyone think a venture like this is? Mmm, fungal enzymes and boo greasy trackpads.