Giant industries like taxis and hospitality are already feeling the crunch of the sharing economy – and we’re only scraping he surface of what’s possible when a gazillion web or crowd-sourced services add up spell disruption. So is Instabridge Wi-Fi the Uber of mobile?
Sweden-based Instabridge last week secured 3 million EUR in financing and is poised to thrust the sharing economy deeper into the mobile world. Right now, it may not seem much of a threat with 3 million crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspots. But the Instabridge Wi-Fi network is growing by 1,000 hotspots per day and is spreading fast in emerging markets such as Brazil & Mexico – and even in some places in the West like Spain.
Instabridge wants to attack India next, says CEO Niklas Agevik. Knowing the awful state of mobile broadband in India, that sounds like the right idea to me. But don’t count Western countries out just yet. Free Wi-Fi is a hard-to-beat value proposition in a lot of markets.
The concept is simple but Instabridge seems to have worked out a recipe for attracting users: Hotspots are mapped and categorised according to speed & availability types, and the map will guide you to the next available hotspot. The app will ping you when a hotspot is available, and you can of course share your own home or other hotspot with friends. The app is clean & simple, designed to get you connected at a touch or seamlessly. So some of this we’ve seen before – so what’s the difference this time?
First of all the app appears well designed. As someone said: It’s made to get out of your way. Nobody really wants to spend time connecting, they just want to be online now. Secondly, other companies like Devicescape & WeFi have crowdsourced tens of millions of hotspots but neither of them cater to consumers – they’re designed for partnership with carriers.
Instabridge has built real community with grassroots public support and already seems to have crossed the chasm into mass-market territory. The service is free and there are no ads. Niklas Agevik says the company’s target right now is to grow the user base. Making money – and how to do that – comes later.
Niklas Agevik likes to call Instabridge a ‘SIM card for Wi-Fi’ and the vision is to become the default Wi-Fi connectivity manager for mobile devices. It’s a great goal. If Instabridge gets their marketing right – helped by the new cash injection – we could be looking at the Uber of mobile. Personally, I’d like to see that happen.
/Claus Hetting
