Offline-online connection

When I first started my WiFi site, it was going to have an accompanying publication. In fact, it had one issue, which ended up being a lot of work.

The vision, however, was to connect the real world, where Portlanders were surfing in coffee shops, to the online world these people were simultaneously inside. I wanted to shrink the web to this subset of laptoperati–participants in the Portland WiFi culture.

A recent NYT article all but declared online purchasing to be dead, because it isn’t growing at the rates it once was. But, as Greg Sterling says, there’s a huge growth opportunity in retailers using their websites to encourage purchases offline.

It’s another way of making the Offline-online connection. Newspapers need it. Local retailers need it. And websites with any local focus could benefit. Look at dating sites now (or, BBSes back in the day) for some examples of connecting people to each other. Chipotle does a good job of getting me from a site visitor to a burrito eater.

For now, an offline-online connection is a nice extra. Soon, it will be an important differentiator between successful local sites and those that continue to struggle.