https://workfrom.co/ has more data
For some cities maybe, but it really depends.
Show HN: Café Wifi Search
21–30 of 51 posts
Re: Show HN: Café Wifi Search
#22Ahh, so you're the one who owns this domain! I worked on prototyping an app with the same name for a while, but ultimately kept it to myself because I saw no promising monetization strategy. There's a lot of competition too, eg coffices.co and thecoffice.biz. Something I found in my usage was that opening hours were more important to me than WiFi availability, and opening hours often don't match the public data (eg c…
> Nowadays I tend to use Google searches instead, as Google pays contributors to keep details in their area updated (eg free 1TB Google Drive after a certain number of contributions).
They've removed the 1TB/100GB benefit entirely [1], but they seem to have achieved their goal (of crowdsourcing updates).
Re: Show HN: Café Wifi Search
#23This data is already in OpenStreetMap. Looking around, there are zero places in the Netherlands and I am certain I tagged at least a few places myself so this map is less complete because they want to do it themselves. It also contains opening hours, addresses, etc., which is all in OSM. I don't understand why people always try to start anew when the data is right there. I can understand there is some complexity in g…
How do you get OSM to display cafes or restaurants?
Re: Show HN: Café Wifi Search
#24This data is already in OpenStreetMap. Looking around, there are zero places in the Netherlands and I am certain I tagged at least a few places myself so this map is less complete because they want to do it themselves. It also contains opening hours, addresses, etc., which is all in OSM. I don't understand why people always try to start anew when the data is right there. I can understand there is some complexity in g…
> It also contains opening hours, addresses, etc., which is all in OSM. I don't understand why people always try to start anew when the data is right there.
It's a while since I played with OSM data for my own prototype, but I found most of the entries were 3 or 4 years out of date, and didn't include anything except a name and GPS co-ordinates. Some didn't even include a name. There was only one entry in my city with opening hours, and that entry didn't differentiate between days of the week. Some entries contained typos, and there was no consistency with naming of chains (eg one person calls it Dome, another Dome Coffee, another The Dome, and another Dome Coffee Fremantle).
In short, OSM was a really bad dataset (at that time) and I found it better to start from scratch.
Re: Show HN: Café Wifi Search
#25This data is already in OpenStreetMap. Looking around, there are zero places in the Netherlands and I am certain I tagged at least a few places myself so this map is less complete because they want to do it themselves. It also contains opening hours, addresses, etc., which is all in OSM. I don't understand why people always try to start anew when the data is right there. I can understand there is some complexity in g…
How do you get OSM to display cafes or restaurants?
Depending on who you talk to, OSM means 2 different things:
- For people involved or passionate in the project, OSM is the database. All information is stored there and is available for consumption
- For people outside of the project, OSM is the website displaying the rendered map. As with all rendering, some information is lost, some is put in front.
If you want this information, you can use the overpass API (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Overpass_API); at higher volumes you may want to get extracts of the db and query it directly, or use a custom renderer to have your own beautiful map with the data you want. Unfortunately there is no way to make the OSM website display specific information on a case-by-case basis.
Re: Show HN: Café Wifi Search
#26Ahh, so you're the one who owns this domain! I worked on prototyping an app with the same name for a while, but ultimately kept it to myself because I saw no promising monetization strategy. There's a lot of competition too, eg coffices.co and thecoffice.biz. Something I found in my usage was that opening hours were more important to me than WiFi availability, and opening hours often don't match the public data (eg c…
> Nowadays I tend to use Google searches instead, as Google pays contributors to keep details in their area updated (eg free 1TB Google Drive after a certain number of contributions). They've removed the 1TB/100GB benefit entirely [1], but they seem to have achieved their goal (of crowdsourcing updates). [1] https://www.google.com/local/guides/benefits/
Are you serious?? That's the only reason I am where I am. Was just about to reach that benefit :(
Re: Show HN: Café Wifi Search
#27Re: Show HN: Café Wifi Search
#28I'm guessing I can only add places via the app? I'm currently sitting at my desktop machine, but could easily add at least 5 Cafés with WiFi near Charing Cross in London. However, I don't have an android or iphone, so am unable to contribute. Maybe letting people log in to the web version and let them add places? (and also maybe bulk uploads, i.e. every Costa and Starbucks has WiFi and it's trivial to get the locatio…
We're trying to work out the best way to do this now, actually. Just out of curiosity, what kind of computer do you use? Mac/Windows/Linux? What browser?
Re: Show HN: Café Wifi Search
#29This data is already in OpenStreetMap. Looking around, there are zero places in the Netherlands and I am certain I tagged at least a few places myself so this map is less complete because they want to do it themselves. It also contains opening hours, addresses, etc., which is all in OSM. I don't understand why people always try to start anew when the data is right there. I can understand there is some complexity in g…
How do you get OSM to display cafes or restaurants?
Use a viewer like openstreetmap.org.
Re: Show HN: Café Wifi Search
#30This data is already in OpenStreetMap. Looking around, there are zero places in the Netherlands and I am certain I tagged at least a few places myself so this map is less complete because they want to do it themselves. It also contains opening hours, addresses, etc., which is all in OSM. I don't understand why people always try to start anew when the data is right there. I can understand there is some complexity in g…
> It also contains opening hours, addresses, etc., which is all in OSM. I don't understand why people always try to start anew when the data is right there. It's a while since I played with OSM data for my own prototype, but I found most of the entries were 3 or 4 years out of date, and didn't include anything except a name and GPS co-ordinates. Some didn't even include a name. There was only one entry in my city wit…
Quality varies a lot, mostly from country to country (at least in western Europe, perhaps on other continents it's more regional). Whatever the quality though, it's a better start than nothing. Why would user data contributed to your application be any better than the user data contributed through OSM? It's a lot easier to edit an invalid property than have a completely blank map and start from scratch.
Also, if projects like these would use OSM (some do, but not all), the quality gets better and it improves for everyone instead of for your specific project.