Find A Hotspot From Your Cell Phone
Jul 21, 2005

Forbes

NEW YORK - A small two-year-old company called JiWire is building a business by licensing its global wireless hot-spot locator, first to Web sites and now to mobile content providers.

4Info, a mobile search service, has signed a licensing agreement with JiWire where users send a text message to 4-INFO (44634) from their mobile phones to find hot spots anywhere in the United States. The service will be available starting Aug. 1.

The JiWire Web site is a must-read for anyone hooked on all things wireless. It provides product news and reviews, tips and tricks, how-to guides and a Wi-Fi locator that lists nearly 69,000 hot spots in more than 100 countries.

Most of its content is available for free, but JiWire licenses the locator to Web sites and portals, including Forbes.com, Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ), CNET (nasdaq: CNET - news - people ), USA Today and Intel (nasdaq: INTC - news - people ). The agreement with 4Info marks a first, as it adds a mobile platform to its channel offerings.

“We want to provide people with information however they want it,” says David Blumenfeld, vice president of marketing at JiWire. The hot-spot locator is also accessible from partner Web sites, through AvantGo on a handheld device, and by a stand-alone program that runs offline on PCs.

The investor climate is improving since the implosion in 2000, and investors are looking at Wi-Fi for the next big thing. The Telecommunications Industry Association estimates that U.S. spending on Wi-Fi goods and services, including wireless networks, will hit $190 billion by 2007. Research firm eMarketer says that online advertising grew 28.8% in 2004 and will climb an additional 20.7% in 2005. JiWire attracted CNET during its initial round of financing and secured DFJ Frontier, the only venture capital firm to invest thus far, earlier this year. Angel investors include Jim Schraith, a former executive from ShareWave and Compaq Computer and who is on JiWire's board of directors.

A mobile hot-spot locator may alleviate the practice known as “wardriving,” where disconnected people roam the streets with their laptops, looking for a wireless fix.

“For business travelers, or anyone planning on being in an unfamiliar area, it’s not practical to expect them to walk around looking for the nearest place they can set up and get on the Internet,” says Blumenfeld.

JiWire has deals with over 400 service providers, which notify the company of new locations as they add hot spots. The company also has relationships with independent providers not affiliated with any major carrier.

4Info already offers free search for local directory assistance, movie times, stock quotes, weather, flights, sports stats and horoscopes. The company added e-mail search for Research in Motion's (nasdaq: RIMM - news - people ) BlackBerry and Palm’s (nasdaq: PALM - news - people ) Treo clients earlier this month, where results are delivered by e-mail to the handheld.

“Offering hot spots was a logical extension to what we already have,” says 4Info’s chief executive, Pankaj Shah. “Mobile search allows consumers to find…the nearest wireless connection makes sense for both business users and those on the move."

To find information, consumers send a text message or e-mail from their mobile phone with the city name and a zip code. The company processes the request and delivers results in a text message within seconds.

Unfortunately for 4Info, it isn't the only company using mobile phones to deliver information. Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) and Yahoo! are betting that consumers will rely on their mobile phones to search the Web when they’re on the go. Yahoo! offers local and image search services specifically for phones, and Google has added a short-message system (SMS) to its mobile Internet search service, allowing users to text message search queries from their phones.

4Info receives data feeds from JiWire whenever the directory is updated. When users send a hot-spot query, the search is done locally on 4Info’s servers, which Shah says helps deliver faster results. JiWire can track some traffic coming to its site from partners, but it can’t definitively calculate how many hot-spot queries are made per day. “There are so many channels,” says Blumenfeld, “we can be talking about multiples of millions of queries.”

JiWire declined to say what it charges partners to carry its locator, but it did say the agreement can be a flat fixed rate or on a per-user rate, depending on the partner’s business model. 4Info pays a flat rate for the service. JiWire has more than tripled the size of its directory listing in two years, as well as expanding its product offerings. It also sells security software called SpotLock, sells advertising on its Web site, and licenses its news and reviews to others.

What's next for JiWire as it adds more hot spots to its directory? The company needs to line up more channels to distribute its locator and its products. While Blumenfeld did not rule out more partnerships with other mobile providers, 4Info is just a step forward.