I think that the Press Release for the pulse points is easily interpreted as something that it is not – this is not a “google-scale” effort to carve out a niche in the WiFi world.

Rather, it’s an experiment in online content – where the content is not universally available, but provides incredibly deep content about a specific place – whether it be a cafe, neighborhood, or city. The real key to this concept is the incredible speed with which this content is available. Because the content is so close to the edge – the transfer speeds are only limited by the speed of WiFi (20-30 mbps max in the real world).

An example: the pulse points use iTunes Music Sharing to provide access to 1200 tunes from local artists – not in a “click and download” interface, but in a stream-on-the-fly interface. The performance is unlike any experience on the ‘net, because the content is so close to the edge. You can literally flip through songs as quickly as flipping through LPs in a record store… Suddenly, it’s easier to find and narrow in on the content that you want to hear.

The pulse point is more of a technology experiment – the ‘skunk works’ project you talk about – that will take WiFi and combine it with geocaching, podcasting, videocasting, mobile phone interaction, and who knows what else.

The Globe will not end up putting out 1000 of these – but they will learn something tremendously important from them: what happens if content is suddenly available at 10x current speeds…

That’s my take…

Mike Oh
Pulse Point Creator