Free Wi-Fi for the Holidays

Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Rohatsu, Happy Ramadan, Happy Yule, Merry Christmas and to all Free Wi-Fi!

I went to the mall this weekend, and no surprise… they’re decorating for the 2010 Holiday Season, to which I’m definitely not ready for, which usually ends up with everyone getting a gift card. Google, of course, has to more than one-up me by giving out free Wifi, which I’m sure is going to be the gift that keeps on giving.

Mashable reports, “Google has worked with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and other companies to provide this free service,” which if I may ad is currently available at 47 airports; Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Houston, Seattle, Miami, Orlando, and Charlotte, just to name a few.

Google continues to show their holiday support by putting a selfless twist to the whole campaign.

“…once you log in to one of the Wi-Fi networks, you’ll have the option to donate to Engineers Without Borders, the One Economy Corporation or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative… Google will match the donations made across all the networks up to $250,000… the airport network that generates the highest amount per passenger by January 1, 2010 will receive $15,000 to donate to the local nonprofit of their choice.”

Many of you might also remember that Google is also doing a Free Wifi promotion with Virgin America, offering free WiFi for passengers.

You can find more info about this initiative, as well as a full list of participating airports at: www.freeholidaywifi.com.

These promotions should prove to be very helpful to the airline industry which continues to suffer due to increase in flights and numerous increases in charges associated with flying.

Not to be out done by its competitor, Yahoo is also launching a free WiFi campaign.

Yahoo has partnered with the Times Square Alliance to offer both visitors and locals free Wi-Fi in Times Square.

It’s definitely a good idea for Yahoo to take advantage of the 500,000 visitors and locals that stroll through Time Square every day: not to mention the 1+ million jamming Times Square waiting all those hours for the magic moment when the big ball drops.

The company has even created news and content tailored to Times Square denizens.

With a specialized start page, I’m sure they hope to monetize from this by having all these WiFi-ready devices use the Yahoo Wifi and hopefully use Yahoo as a starting point for browsing the seemingly infinite mobile-cyber world.

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