Meraki: "Connect the next billion"

Meraki, a Wi-Fi company that just launched just over a year and half ago has already connected people in over 70 countries to wireless internet via their specialized mesh Wi-Fi networks. Most of us know about in home Linksys wireless routers and you're probably asking yourself whats the big difference with Meraki?

In March 2007, Meraki quietly launched a side project called "Free the Net"..."in just a few months, Free the Net has organically grown to connect over 40,000 people." They're using this project to create a mesh network to cover the entire San Francisco area to free Wi-Fi. Their goal isn't necessarily to make bank on the project, but more to prove that their technology can supply a single Wi-Fi network to an entire city. They strongly believe that their wireless broadband technology has the potential to change the economics of the internet. Their goal is provide affordable internet to the next billion people around the world.

But why are their networks affordable and different? Meraki started as an M.I.T. Ph.D research project to provide wireless access to graduate students. The research led to the development of specialized transmitters that can be connected to create mesh networks over large areas. This means that instead of setting up several different Linksys routers across an apartment building and logging on to different networks depending on where you are in the building, with Meraki, there are still several units, but users only log on to one network that covers the entire area. As more transmitters are installed, they work together to increase signal strength. This has several advantages:

1. Simplified management tools: 1 network instead of several
2. Extended internet reach: easily supply strong Wi-Fi signals across large areas
3. Shared bandwidth: the incremental cost of adding users is almost nothing
4. Fewer internet access points in one building: fewer wires and a much easier installation
5. Green technology: solar powered devices, and fewer devices significantly reduce energy requirements
6. Special design for large-scale, high-usage networks: Meraki mesh makes it possible to quickly expand your network without the growing pains
7. Increased reliability: every repeater that is added no only extends the network but simultaneously makes it more reliable

This technology could be huge. These networks can grow fast, inexpensively, and extend signal reach rapidly for large areas. This is primarily why Meraki's technology has the potential to put unreliable Comcast and other providers out of business. As VoIP and web television simultaneously grow, a situation could arise where VoIP phones and Wi-Fi enabled televisions start operating through the wireless internet connections. At that point, a bundle for all three connections that currently costs over a $100, could be brought down to maybe $40, $30, or even $25. The increasing trend of highly targeted advertising could concurrently provide a catalyst for decreased costs and possibly free internet in some areas as well.

Meraki technology is smart and intuitive, it solves problems and creates new opportunities, its highly scalable and extremely efficient...who knows how their technology can transform the economics of the internet.

Making the web more relevant

For those of you concerned that some of the time you spend on the web is a complete waste of time, you may now sleep at night. It turns out that the countless hours we devote to browsing the web and using web-hosted applications will benefit us in a new way—every minute we invest in using the internet will pay off in an increasingly relevant experience.

Programmers are leveraging APML (Attention Profiling Mark-Up Language) to allow users to share their “attention profile”—a compressed file of Attention Data such as browsing history, shared photos, blog posts, tweets, social bookmarks, and more—to reveal their ranked interests in order that they may receive more relevant information from content providers. Put simply, Attention Data tells content providers what we pay attention to the most so that they can align their efforts with our exact tastes.

Sounds brilliant? It is. Attention profiling has the potential to revolutionize an individual’s browsing experience. Currently, we are in an age of hyper-saturation in which searching for relevant content is a burdensome task. The APML standard will give you greater control over your Attention Data, allowing you to choose what is recorded in your attention profile—favorite websites, frequently used search terms, content you link to—and share it with your favorite websites and online services.

APML will provide marketers with a highly coveted wealth of information and users with a better web experience and control over their personal information in order to prevent exploitative data mining. The benefits are clear, which is why many new and existing sites, including many popular social media and networking utilities that collect a magnitude of information, are on board. For a good example of how powerful it can be, check out Idiomag, the beautifully designed, highly interactive music magazine that shows you music news and media relevant to your favorite musicians.

Here’s a couple of links with more details about APML and other revolutionary open standards to appease the inner geek in you.

Building the Media Web

Ian Rogers, former General Manager of Yahoo! Music and current VP Video and Media applications, just published a rather lengthy, but nonetheless insightful post in which he challenges the media community to see that "there is more opportunity in leveraging the scale of the Web than trying to create scarcity." This can be done, Rogers claims, if the community cooperates in building a "healthy ecosystem" of many participants that leverages users as value creators.

Rogers evidently sees the way the "Physics of Media" is changing and asks us to adapt accordingly:

"We’re moving from a world of limited distribution channels and therefore abundant attention (CBS was not scared of losing any of us as customers 20 years ago, I came home from school every day and watched Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island because it was THE ONLY THING ON), to a world of unlimited distribution and therefore attention scarcity (when Zoe watches TV it’s TiVo and she doesn’t even watch TV after school, she gets on the computer, uses Facebook, does her homework with the help of Wikipedia, IMs with friends, etc)."

In the new world of unlimited distribution, expensive marketing campaigns fall short due to limited attention to any single distribution channel and quality becomes "hyper-efficient - if something is good, everyone sees it." Choices are boundless in the Rogers' egalitarian "Media Web"; therefore, people get to watch what what they want or what is relevant to them. This concept is terrifying to old world giants who are accustomed to controlling means of distribution and often sacrifice quality for expensive marketing campaigns to turn various media financial successes. But to the masses, it's beautiful. Future generations have the opportunity to enrich culture and explore diverse media as a result of pulling from several contact points, as opposed to very few channels pushing the content.

One of the main ways Roger's suggests recalibrating in the new world and leveraging scale is by acknowledging the much ignored user-generated value on the web:

"[Users are] writing blogs about your artists, putting bios on Wikipedia, documenting last night’s concert on Flickr and video sharing sites, showing what songs are most popular by their behavior on Last.fm, building “box sets” on community sites, etc. How has the music industry leveraged this? What tools have you created to enable or encourage it?"

He also rejects the proprietary media model and categorically states that open source standards is the solution to optimizing the media experience--the reason being that users create more contexts for content, ultimately giving media more exposure for fewer costs. Here's an example of what he is talking about, using digital packaging as an example:

It will be interesting to see what the role Yahoo! will play in the Media Web. One can only assume that the powerhouses of today will remain in the center of whatever Web is to created in the future. Although Google is breathing down its neck, Yahoo! still boasts the most site traffic on the internet (arguably the company's greatest strength and only hope) and the number one music site on the internet. Could this movement that Rogers is calling for have an alternative agenda for positioning Yahoo! for the future, leveraging its loyal user base to become a distribution channel powerhouse?

In any case, check out the original post for more details and a further discussion of Rogers' plans for Yahoo! in the Media Web. Also, you can download Umair Haque's presentation The New Economics of Media, an extensive re-examination of media that Rogers references.