Cafes vs Coworking Spaces

I’ve been debating the use of coworking space. If you aren’t familiar with the term, coworking is the act of working in a shared space with other people who aren’t necessarily in your company or organization. It typically is held in some kind of office space and includes independent contractors, startup entrepreneurs, freelance writers, and those who travel frequently.

Within San Francisco, there are dozens of coworking spaces. I’ve listed all that I could find below alphabetically. Some have certain entry requirements, others are affiliated with investment organizations. The prices listed are for 24/7 first-come, first-serve seating. There’s a higher fee for dedicated desks.


Coworking Space Price per month Entry Affiliations
Citizen Space $300, $150 for 9-5 access Open to anyone None
Dogpatch Labs Not publicly stated Interview required Polaris Ventures
Hub Bay Area $445 Application required, social change startups preferred Hub Ventures
NextSpace $285, $235 for a 12-month pack Open to anyone None
pariSoma $275 Open to anyone None
Sandbox Suites $345, $295 for 8-6 weekday access Open to anyone None
Founders Den Not publicly stated Invite only None
Mission Social $300 Open to anyone None
RocketSpace $650 Open to anyone Kicklabs and Kauffman Labs
rezerv.it $275 Open to anyone None
Reactor SF Not publicly stated Open to anyone None
PeopleBrowsr Labs $600 Application required None, but offers the use of their products
Social Venture Technology Group Not publicly stated Interview required None
The Summit SF Not publicly stated, though the 8am-10pm cafe area is free Interview required through I/O Ventures I/O Ventures
Krux Labs $500 Open to anyone, 3-month contract minimum None

The alternatives for me happen to be cheaper: working from home or working in a cafe. Working at home isn’t effective because I tend to get distracted easily. It’s just too easy to get up, get a snack, or take a nap. Bad me, I know.

I love working in cafes though. I luckily found a great cafe near me that has free wifi, friendly proprietors who know my name, and available seating. It is also relatively quiet, yet has enough stimulation to keep me energized. That’s important too; I love cafes because of the buzz of activity there. The people-watching, the conversations, the music, all of it adds to this vibrant ambiance that helps me focus. It’s relatively cheap too, though I don’t skimp on making drink and food purchases to pay for my fair share of their space.

The downside is that it’s not easy to work with others in cafes. There’s no guarantee that a colleague will find a free table next to mine. Add two to four more colleagues, and it becomes near impossible.

Enter coworking spaces.

Coworking spaces aren’t as cheap as working alone in cafes. But with colleagues, having a guaranteed space together is important. As is the energy of the community within many of the coworking spaces listed above. They all have a particular vibe. Some are more professional, some are more scrappy, some are more artsy. But all offer a community of like-minded people who could help my colleagues and I in unexpected ways. And us them.

So it’s time to start winding down my cafe days and find a new home in a coworking space. Goodbye cafes, hello coworking spaces!

Technology, Mobile, Internet Business, Digital Design and Web 2.0 Conferences

Got the itch to travel? And the desire to meet colleagues from other states? And perhaps catch an interesting talk or two? How about an industry conference?

Within the world of web startups and internet businesses, there are a dizzying number of conferences. I’ve attempted to list all of the major ones here. Upcoming dates are included if they’ve been announced. Many of these conferences have already had their 2010 events, so perhaps I’ll have to create this list again early next year to catch the 2011 events before they happen. If I’ve missed anything, please let me know.

General Conferences in the United States

South by Southwest Interactive

Next date: March 11-15, 2011 in Austin, TX

This event started as an Austin, Texas-based music festival in 1987 that added the film and interactive conferences in 1994, all of which have become some of the world’s largest industry events in their respective fields.

TechCrunch Disrupt

Next date: September 27-29, 2010 in San Francisco, CA

This was created in 2010 from the ashes of Michael Arrington and Jason Calacanis’ disbanded TechCrunch50 conference, to continue the vision of TC50 as a way to demo emerging Web 2.0 startups.

D: All Things Digital

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This was created by Walter Mossberg and Kara Swisher in 2003, and is held in Carlsbad, CA annually.

DEMO

Next date: September 13-15, 2010 in Santa Clara, CA

Venture capitalist Stewart Alsop created this conference in 1991 as a launchpad for emerging technologies. It has since changed hands, from Chris Shipley to Matt Marshall.

Voices That Matter

Next date: June 28-29, 2010 in San Francisco, CA

Created by the educational publishing company Pearson Education in 2007, these events emphasize opportunities for learning and networking from industry leaders.

Gnomedex

Next date: August 19-21, 2010 in Seattle, WA

This was created by former TechTV personality Chris Pirillo in 2001 as a single-track technology conference.

Supernova

Next date: July 29-30, 2010 in Philadelphia, PA

Created by Wharton professor Kevin Werbach in 2002, this event explores the transformation of computing, communications, business, and society.

ReadWriteWeb Summits

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

Created by the team at the ReadWriteWeb blog, these events cover a variety of topics, from the real-time web to mobile technologies.

Social Developer Summit

Next date: June 29, 2010 in San Francisco, CA

Started this year mediabistro.com and All Facebook founder Nick O’Neill, this event aims to unite social app developers to discuss solutions and best practices for building applications in the rapidly expanding social web economy.

Inside Social Apps

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

Created by the social media & gaming market research agency Inside Network, this event covers issues around the social app and gaming industry.

Virtual Goods Summit

Next date: October 12-13, 2010 in San Francisco, CA

Created by Charles Hudson of mediabistro.com, this event focuses on the emerging market opportunity for virtual goods and economies.

Startup Lessons Learned

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This event is designed to unite those interested in what it takes to succeed in building a lean startup.

BizConf

Next date: August 4-6, 2010 in Amelia Island, FL

This event is aimed at entrepreneurs, thought leaders, startup founders, and consultants.

The Founder Conference

Next date: August 17, 2010 in Mountain View, CA

This event was created to allow participants to network with other startup founders, find co-founders, improve their ideas and learn how to bootstrap.

LessConf

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This event covers topics ranging from startups to design to marketing to business.

Big Omaha

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This event was created by Silicon Prairie News (SPN) in 2009 and is held in Omaha, NE for entrepreneurs, innovators and creatives.

FailCon

Next date: October 25, 2010 in San Francisco, CA

This conference focuses on start-up failures and how to prepare & recover from them.

BizTechDay

Next date: September 18, 2010 in Seattle, WA

Next date: September 24, 2010 in New York, NY

Next date: October 23, 2010 in San Francisco

This event was started in 2008 by Edith Yeung after a conversation she had with Gary Marshall from the Small Business Administration, and aims to be a conference that inspires entrepreneurs to create and grow their business with the help of technology.

SF New Tech

Next date: July 20, 2010 in San Francisco

These are a series of regular events for startup entrepreneurs, VCs, journalists, recruiters, and others in the industry.

Startup Weekend

Next date: June 25-27, 2010 in Chicago, IL

Next date: September 17-19, 2010 in Edmonton, Canada

Created by Andrew Hyde, this event became a non-profit when Marc Nager and Clint Nelsen took over all operations. Ticket prices are typically much lower than other conferences.

Startup School

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This was created by Paul Graham in 2004 for technical entrepreneurs to learn about building startups.

Finance4Founders

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

Founded by Dave McClure & Dan Martell, this exclusive, invitation-only event is dedicated to educating and helping the next generation of internet startups around issues of fund raising, option pools, and term sheets.

Maker Faire

Next date: July 10, 2010 in Aspen, CO (mini event)

Next date: September 25-26, 2010 in New York, NY

This was created by Make Magazine to celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset.

E3

Next date: June 15-17, 2010 in Los Angeles, CA

Created in 1995 by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) covers the video game industry.

DEF CON

Next date: July 30-August 1, 2010 in Las Vegas, NV

Created in 1993, this is one of the largest and oldest continuously-running conferences for the hacker community.

SF MusicTech Summit

Next date: December 6, 2010 in San Francisco

This event covers the music and technology space.

Hacks/Hackers Unite

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This was created by Rich Gordon, Burt Herman & Aron Pilhofer as a hands-on workshop to build storytelling applications on tablet devices. This past 2010 event was the first.

Lunch 2.0

Next date: Varies; there are lots of them

These events are informal gatherings organized by various companies who hold a short presentation, then break off for lunch and networking.

General Conferences in Europe

LeWeb

Next date: December 8-9, 201 in Paris, France

This was created by Loïc Le Meur in 2005 as a conference covering technology, the Internet, and entrepreneurism.

The Next Web

Next date: April 27-29, 2011 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

This was created by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Arjen Schat & Patrick de Laive as a means to bring the professional web industry together in Europe.

O’Reilly Conferences

Web 2.0 Summit

Next date: November 15-17, 2010 in San Francisco, CA

This is an invitation-only conference where Internet executives gather to debate and determine business strategy.

Web 2.0 Expo

Next date: September 27-30, 2010 in New York, NY

Next date: March 28-31, 2011 in San Francisco, CA

This is a spin-off of the Web 2.0 Summit and has open registration.

Ignite

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This is run by local volunteers and gives presenters 5 minutes each to present their ideas to the audience.

Velocity

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This covers web performance and operations.

OSCON

Next date: July 19-23, 2010 in Portland, OR

This covers the vast open source industry.

Gov 2.0 Summit

Next date: September 7-8, 2010 in Washington, DC

This is an invitation-only conference that covers the intersection of web technologies and the US government.

Tools of Change for Publishing

Next date: February 14-16, 2011 in New York, NY

This covers technologies in the publishing space.

FooCamp

Next date: No new dates announced yet

This was originally created in 2004 as a joke by Tim O’Reilly and Sara Winge. More recently, topical Foo Camps have been held at various locations and by various organizers.

BarCamp

Next date: Varies; there are lots of them

This started in 2005 as a spin-off of Foo Camp and has evolved into a series of user-organized conferences and unconferences all around the world.

GigaOM Events

GreenNet

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This event covers green technologies and businesses.

Structure

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This event covers the cloud computing industry.

Mobilize

Next date: September 30, 2010 in San Francisco, CA

This event covers the mobile computing industry.

NewTeeVee Live

Next date: November 10, 2010 in San Francisco, CA

This event covers the online video industry.

Net:Work

Next date: December 9, 2010 in San Francisco, CA

This event covers the tools, technologies and practices shaping the future of work.

The Bunker Summit

Next date: No new dates announced yet

This is an invitation-only retreat for 150 selected executives to confer about creating new opportunities across industries.

Bunker Sessions

Next date: July 28, 2010 in San Francisco, CA (open source software in enterprise)

Next date: August 25, 2010 in San Francisco, CA (e-books and publishing)

Next date: September 29, 2010 in San Francisco, CA (mobile technologies in healthcare)

Next date: October 27, 2010 in San Francisco, CA (app marketplaces and TV)

These are a series of town hall meetings covering a wide variety of topics.

Carsonfied Events

Future of Web Apps Conference

Next date: October 4-6, 2010 in London, United Kingdom

This is a conference on the web development industry.

Future of Web Design Conference

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This is a conference on the web design industry.

ThinkVitamin Online Conferences

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

These are a series of online video tutorials covering a variety of topics.

UBM TechWeb Events

Interop

Next date: September 28-30, 2010 in Mumbai, India

Next date: October 18-22, 2010 in New York, NY

Next date: May 8-12, 2011 in Las Vegas, NV

This series of events covers a spectrum of IT and mobile technologies.

Enterprise 2.0

Next date: November 8-11, 2010 in Santa Clara, CA

This event covers technology and software in the enterprise space.

Cloud Connect Conference

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This event focuses on cloud computing and the cloud eco-system.

Environments for Humans Events

In Control Web Design Workshop Conference

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This event covers web design practices, trends and technologies.

CSS Summit

Next date: July 28, 2010 online

This virtual event consists of a series of videos covering CSS development techniques.

Web Optimization Summit

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This event covers web performance optimization techniques.

Mobile Technology Conferences

Mobile World Congress

Next date: November 17-18, 2010 in Hong Kong, China

Next date: February 14-17, 2011 in Barcelona, Spain

This event covers the mobile industry with an international audience.

Mobile 2.0 Conference

Next date: September 20-21, 2010 in Mountain View, CA & San Francisco, CA

Created by five entrepreneurs in the mobile space, this event covers on mobile applications, services, ecosystems, and disruptive innovations.

MobiSys Conference

Next date: June 15-18, 2010 in San Francisco, CA

This event is held by the ACM Special Interest Group on mobile technologies (SIGMOBILE).

APPCON

Next date: August 24-26, 2010 in Las Vegas, NV

This event focuses specifically on mobile applications.

Web Design Conferences

An Event Apart

Next date: September 16-18, 2010 in Washington, DC

Next date: November 1-2, 2010 in San Diego, CA

This was created by Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman in 2005 for passionate practitioners of standards-based web design.

WebVisions

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This was created by Brad Smith as an event to explore the future of web design, content creation, user experience and business strategy.

BayCHI

Next date: June 22, 2010 in Santa Clara, CA (eye tracking)

Next date: July 13, 2010 in Palo Alto, CA

These events are held by the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI).

AIGA Design Conference

Next date: October 13-16, 2011 in Phoenix, AZ

These events are held by AIGA, a professional association for the design industry.

Computer Hardware Conferences

Comdex

Next date: November 16-17, 2010 online

This long-running computer expo has been in operation since 1979. It is now operated by UBM TechWeb. The next event will be entirely online.

CeBIT

Next date: March 1-5, 2011 in Hanover, Germany

This is the world’s largest computer expo. It was created as a spin-off of the Hanover Fair in 1986.

Computex Taipei

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

This is the world’s second-largest computer expo. It was created by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and the Taipei Computer Association (TCA) in 1981.

Company-specific Conferences

Google I/O Conference

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

Google hosts this conference as a platform to present their latest products and technologies.

Facebook f8 conference

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

Facebook hosts this conference as a platform to present their latest features and technologies.

Apple Worldwide Developers Conference

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

Apple hosts this conference as a platform to present their latest products and technologies.

Microsoft MIX Conference

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

Microsoft hosts this conference as a platform to present their latest products and technologies.

Twitter Chirp Conference

Next date: Already past, no new dates announced yet

Twitter hosts this conference as a platform to present their latest features and technologies.

Adobe MAX

Next date: October 23-27, 2010 in Los Angeles, CA

Adobe hosts this conference as a platform to present their latest features and technologies.

Props to: Casey Allen

Upscale Hotels with No Free Wifi

Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers You know what’s lame? Upscale hotels with no free wifi.

I’m staying at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel right now. It’s a fancy place with all kinds of nice amenities. Sans wifi.

I had the same experience with Hilton and Ritz Carlton.

Do you know who does offer free wifi? Discount hotels like Radisson. Even Best Western offers free wifi.

So why don’t hotels where I’m paying a premium offer a service that their lower-priced competitors have made a commodity? Is it the cost of operating such a system? Security issues? Infrastructure issues? Or do they just not want to?

As a business traveler, I always look for a hotel with free wifi in the rooms. (Today’s trip isn’t for business, by the way.) Having it in the public area is not acceptable, nor is paying for the wifi. Fortunately, since discount hotels offer free wifi, I’m getting a great deal – an inexpensive hotel plus free wifi!

P.S. How funny, I’ve ranted about this before. See how much it bugs me? C’mon hoteliers, get with it!

Why Don’t Expensive Hotels Have Free Wifi?

Hilton Hotel in Budapest Seriously, why don’t expensive hotels have free wifi? I’ve been to a Hilton, a Sheraton, and a Ritz Carlton. All didn’t have free wifi.

On the flip side, a Raddisson, a Days Inn, and a Best Western did.

What gives?

Marriott (MAR) didn’t always have free wifi. But at least they’re offering it now.

For the money I’m paying for a Hilton or Sheraton, I expect excellent service, clean rooms, and at least feature parity with lesser hotels. Currently, I do get excellent service and clean rooms – much cleaner than a Best Western. Plus more amenities too. But no free wifi? That’s just lame.

Getting the Cheapest Deals on Priceline.com

Priceline.com and BiddingForTravel.com I’m all for saving money. How about you?

That’s why I squealed like a schoolgirl in front of Justin Timberlake (ew, I can’t believe I just typed his name; I have to wash my keyboard now) when I heard about BiddingForTravel.com.

BiddingForTravel.com is a forum where members list the their winning Priceline.com bids for airlines, hotels, and rental cars. Friends tell me it’s best for hotels though. This means you can find out about how much you should bid for a particular hotel (or class of hotels) and be reasonably sure you’ll get it.

And guess how much this information costs? My favorite price: free!

Without this information, you might pay more on Priceline.com than is really necessary. If you try to bid on a hotel right now, a suggested price range for each class of hotels will be given to you. However, these ranges are generally higher than a what those hotels will really accept. And even after making your bid, Priceline.com will warn you to increase your bid to better your chances.

Why, Shatner, why? Aren’t you here to help us save money?

Of course, you could just as easily enter in too low a bid. All of us would love to pay $10/night for a midtown hotel in Manhattan, but it ain’t gonna happen. So that’s where BiddingForTravel.com comes in.

Here’s how it works. Say you’re going on a trip to NYC and want to stay somewhere near Times Square. You can:

  • Browse the forum

    For instance, you can look under the NYC hotels section and go through its hotel list, which includes reviews and previous winning bids.

  • Search the forum

    The search box is sort of buried in the middle and uses Google’s search engine. Pretty simple to use once you spot it.

  • Ask for “Bidding assistance”

    This is where you post a message asking for help in getting a particular bid. Before you do that though, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with their posting guidelines.

Even though the site looks like a rainbow got drunk and threw up on it, it’ll save you both time (from entering in a bid too low) and money (from entering in a bid too high). That makes Priceline.com and BiddingForTravel.com a pretty damn awesome tool for thrifty travelers.

UPDATE 2/21/2008: A buddy just told me about a similar site called BetterBidding.

Mobile WiFi In Cars

Autonet Mobile wifi router I just came back from a long road trip in Arizona. Seriously long. The rental car started with 22,590 miles on its odometer. We returned it with 24,191 miles. That’s 1,601 miles! All over the state of Arizona! Whew!

Armed with free AAA maps, wifi-enabled laptops, and smartphones (yes, we are geeks), we were able to navigate hundreds of miles of city streets and lonely stretches of desert.

But occasionally, we needed to go online for information like weather, hotel reservations, tourist information, etc. In most cases, Google SMS (GOOG) gave us what we needed—especially for weather and specific directions. For other information, a web browser was needed. That’s where our smartphone’s microbrowsers came in handy.

Then I read Michael Lasky’s Wired Magazine article, “Autonet Mobile: Your Own Personal Hotspot, Everywhere You Go“:

Once behind the wheel of the Pontiac, I plug the Autonet into the cigarette lighter and within seconds (seconds, not minutes) my PC picks up a full Wi-Fi signal. In a blink I’m checking gmail, and not long after that I download directions to my hotel. Then I look at my watch. The entire process, from initial plug-in to receiving route info, is done in under a minute. I can’t match this performance — even with my iPhone.

Autonet Mobile is, according to their site, a “Wireless Internet Service Provider designed to maintain internet connectivity within the car.” Based in Marin County, CA, they offer several service plans, none of which are currently listed. Lasky reports that the plans are expected to range from $80-100/month for unlimited service. As of now, they only seem to be available from Avis for $10.95 per day—and then only from select Avis locations.

The technical details: their wifi router offers access speeds of 600-800Kbps and upload speeds of about 200Kbps within a 100ft radius. Autonet runs over both 3G and 2.5G (EVDO, 1xRTT) cellular data networks, which covers roughly 95% of the US. Also, integrated WEP encryption, MAC address restriction and WAN port restriction is provided. This means you get fairly comprehensive coverage and good security.

Ingeniously, the connection is maintained even as you drive past different cell towers and carriers. Autonet has a tower-to-tower hand-off feature that connects to the tower with the strongest EVDO broadband signal, regardless of carrier. How do they do this? With some cool technology and nondenominational network agreements with Sprint and Verizon.

It sounds like a pretty cool idea, though for my needs (getting information while traveling), a smartphone takes care of all that. Why would I pay extra to be able to use my laptop in a rental car?

Answer is, I probably wouldn’t. But what about a new car buyer getting a new car? That’s a bit different. Lasky mentioned this intriguing news: “Starting next month, [Autonet Mobile CEO Sterling] Pratz’s vision will take its next step when Autonet hardware and services is offered at Toyota dealerships in Northern California. Not long after that, other (unnamed) car brands and dealerships will begin to offer Autonet Mobile.”

In dealerships, huh? So you could conceivably buy a car and get an option for wifi? Interesting idea there. I could see road warriors, traveling salespeople, and perhaps even vacationers on road trips enjoying a feature like this—if the price is right. Right now, all of them have mobile phones that can get them the information they need, albeit in varying degrees of quality and speed.

A wifi-enabled car could also offer enhanced navigation services, aside from weather & traffic, which are already offered by many. Perhaps the navigation screen doubles as a web browser? Or, while it gives you directions to a restaurant, it helps you make a reservation too? Or tourist information like hours of service and historical tidbits?

This indeed seems to be what Autonet Mobile is envisioning. Says Pratz: “Autonet Mobile is focused on the personal hotspot as an in-car entertainment solution, replacing in-car DVD systems that lets five to six users simultaneously access the net from any Wi-Fi enabled device — including iPhones. … We expect a range of holding between five to ten movies or flash games, music, TV shows and so on [in the Autonet Mobile device].”

Interesting stuff! The idea of a wifi-enabled car seems like one of those ideas where, ten years from now, we’ll look back and go, “Well, duh! Of course cars have wifi!” It’s going to be cool to see where this technology goes.

(BTW, I’m not being paid for this or anything. It just sounded like a cool idea that I wanted to write about.)