Love is in the air and we have a great way to showcase your WiFi love. We're giving away 50 free eStarling WiFi picture frames amongst Foneros who share their WiFi with the Community.The eStarling WiFi picture frame allows you to:1. Link the frame to your favourite online photo album to automatically display your pictures (Flickr, Picasa and others).2. Set up groups to instantly receive pictures from your friends and family's email accounts and cell phones.3. Create your own picture playlists.4. Create a email address dedicated to sending pictures directly to your picture Frame, even from your cell phone!Keep your La Fonera online, and on Valentine's Day, you'll be eligible to win one of the 50 WiFi Frames. We'll give them away to those who show their love by sharing their WiFi! Details and official rules here.Don't forget to check your La Fonera status! There's still time to keep your La Fonera online and get your free WiFi picture frame!Get your WiFi heartbeat pumping and sharing the love! Details and official rules here (PDF).
Fellow Fonero Gabriel F. Storchi has decided to drive from Buenos Aires to Alaska. If the car still drives he'll ship it to Sweden and drive to India from there. He's driving in a restored Chevy Nova (I suspect the don't call it a Nova in Argentina) and posting his updates (in Spanish) and photos. Take a look and watch for him in your town!
FON has been named one of the "Top 10 Startups Worth Watching in 2008". We're sharing that space with some interesting company. Take a look and help us make 2008 a great year for Foneros!
We've lauched our new community tools and redesigned our Maps The new Maps allow you to send messages to Foneros anywhere in the world, search for bars, restaurants and other FON Spots in your favorite neighborhood, and personalize more of the information you wish to share with other Foneros. We've added filters to refine your searches and have significantly improved the download speed to make finding WiFi quicker and easier. Please give them a try and enjoy connecting (bad pun I know) with other Foneros! The new and improved User Zone is now called now called “My FON". It's designed to give you access to the most popular FON features and make sharing WiFi a more interactive and community-based experience. Now you can use WiFi and your FON Spots to tell others about your neighbourhood and yourself, and learn about the best places to visit when on the go. I hope you enjoy communicating with and learning about other Foneros who are sharing bandwith too! To reach your My FON community tools simply log on at the top of our home page. From there you can check messange and manage your FON Spot.
If you're proud owner of an iPhone the FONLabs have an applet for you! It's available via AppTapp and allows you to automatically connect to FON Spots on the iPhone and iPod touch!
Find more than FON Spots everywhere when you travel with the help of the Everywhere travel magazine. Here at FON we not only love sharing with you news about FON, Foneros around the world, or fun WiFi widgets, but occasionally come across some other community powered idea that we get excited about and want to introduce you to. That's the case with 'Everywhere' magazine! Everywhere is a new community-generated magazine for people who want to share stories about first-hand travel experiences. The heart of Everywhere is www.everywheremag.com, a site where anyone can submit and vote on their favorite places, photos and stories to be published in the magazine. The Everywhere community votes help decide what goes into each issue, and if your photo or story is published, you will receive $100 plus a free subscription to Everywhere magazine! The Everywhere community believes that travel is all around you - not just something you do once or twice a year - so members can submit photos and stories about places in their neighborhood, or from exotic vacations around the world. (Kind of reminds us of how we like WiFi around the world, but also next door.) So, next time you're taking your WiFi somewhere, check out www.everywheremag.com to find interesting new places, travel tips and more!
The team at www.HandyWi.com have launched a new Wifi connector for Symbian S60, 3rd generation Nokia (E51, E60, E61, E61i, E65, E70, E90, N80, N81, N81, N91, N92, N93, N93i, N95). Now it's easier then ever to connect to FON. HandyWi features:* Filtering of hotspots, separated view for public WLAN networks (FON/Zebra)* HandyWi clearly shows which access point is secure and which is not* Single internet access point (HandyWi APN) for all applications (mail, web browser, char etc.)* Easy account management, several user accounts possible (scratch card, prepaid etc.)* Access to the location based media information, loaded each time you connect (works on selected WLAN networks only)* Automatic hotspot discovery and alert feature* Automatic connection to the hotspot which has stronger signal* Secure RSA encrypted communication with HandyWi server* Automatic application startup after install and on boot
CBS has just announced that the launch of its CBS Mobile Zone project to “Light Up Midtown Manhattan with Free Wireless Internet Access”. This is great news for WiFi, free access and for everyone that loves NY. FON was one of CBS’ partners to make this new project a reality. Other partners include the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and New York City Transit, as well as several next-generation companies including Tropos, BIG, Ning, Goowy, Veoh, Yelp, 1020, Aptilo and Can-Do Entertainment.The “CBS Mobile Zone” or “Wi-Fi HotZone” is already up and running in certain areas in Midtown and will be fully operational by the end of the month with a footprint of more than 20 city blocks from Times Square to Central Park South and from 6th Avenue to 8th Avenue.New Yorkers who access the “CBS Mobile Zone,” will be greeted by an ad-supported homepage that includes hyperlocal content such as breaking local and national news, sports highlights, weather reports, music discovery, wallpapers, ringtones, maps, a social network and the ability to search for nearby restaurants, shops and entertainment complete with geographically-targeted community reviews.This is another great step forward for WiFi!
San Francisco, CA November 12th, 2007 -- FON’s is mission is to make WiFi universal and free worldwide through a global community of ‘Foneros’. In less than two years since its launch, FON has built the world's largest Wi-Fi community with over 530,000 members worldwide. Since opening its US office in San Francisco last year, FON has been focused on growing the base of its ‘Foneros’ (FON Community Members) in the US.“We are a tech savvy nation whose expectations for internet access are high. People want fast, easy WiFi access - anytime, anywhere. As FON is poised for explosive growth in the U.S. this is an excellent opportunity for our new affiliate partners to contribute to this growth and be rewarded handsomely for their efforts.” says Joanna Reese, Chief Fonera USA.The FON concept is simple – people share a portion of their WiFi internet connection at home and in exchange can roam on any other FON hotspot around the world for free. FON’s ‘La Fonera’ wireless routers have been designed to enable ‘Foneros’ to share their home Internet access in a completely secure manner by creating two distinct channels – a private channel for the hotspot owner, and a shared channel for the Community.FON is eager to grow its U.S. membership through its newly launched Affiliate Partner Marketing Program offered through Commission Junction, a ValueClick company based in Santa Barbara, California. The program pays its affiliates (or Publishers as they are known on Commission Junction) a referral commission of 15% to 18% for each sale of FON’s WiFi Router – the device needed to securely share and get free access in the FON Community.For more information about FON’s new Affiliate Program, go here: http://www.fon.com/en/landing/marketingpartnerThe URL for the FON Commission Junction sign up form is: https://signup.cj.com/member/brandedPublisherSignUp.do?air_refmerchantid=2094316The program is being managed by Jim Gribble of LinkProfits who has been managing affiliate programs for its select group of clients since 1999. Interested parties are encouraged to contact Mr. Gribble with any questions they may have about the program.Contact:Jim GribblePartner Marketing ManagerEmail: affiliates@fon.comPhone: 301 916-3900FON WiFi201 Post Street, 11th FloorSan Francisco, CA 94108Phone: 415 558-8600www.FON.com
As you already know, we have joined forces with BT to offer Internet users in the UK WiFi everywhere. We are asking Britons to "Join IN" the BT FON Community!!!And now we're proud to show you that FON is "IN" at BT's headquarters in London!For more about BT FON, visit www.btfon.com
The City of Geneva and FON have officially announced a joint project to provide WiFi access to the city’s residents and visitors. Starting next week, 500 La Fonera WiFi Routers will be distributed to residents who have a broadband connection at home and have signed up for the project at: http://geneve-fon.org. Residents who want to become Foneros and share some of their broadband with the rest of the FON Community will gain free and unlimited access to more than 250,000 FON Spots around the world. Once the 500 La Foneras have been installed, Geneva’s residents and all of your Foneros visiting the city will enjoy WiFi coverage.This project is part of FON’s strategy to provide WiFi coverage in major cities worldwide, such as Tokyo, San Francisco and Munich. This initiative together with ChuecaWiFi in Madrid and FON’s partnerships with BT in the UK and Neuf Cegetel in France, give Foneros even more FON Spots around the world to connect to and give non Foneros more reasons to join the FON Community.
We had so much fun creating our Matador videos, we want to share the fun by inviting you to create your own video. The winner will get two roundtrip tickets to Madrid, Spain, a tour & visit with the FON team at our HQ offices, and a three night stay at Martin Varsarsky’s (FON’s founder and CEO) farm in Menorca, Spain! You can find all the details and rules here!
The Fon Labs team is at it again. This time they've created unfoldingnews.com. This tool is designed to track news as it's reported. Today when major news organizations (finally) picked up the story of Comcast blocking BitTorrent I used it to see who broke the story first. It's still in the experimental stage so any suggestions are appreciated!
