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iTunes idea

As noted earlier in the blog, I was in Salt Lake City over the last week, at a great little hotel. Said hotel offers free, open WiFi, along with wired internet in some of its rooms. But the WiFi was open…I didn’t test it, but I would guess you could pick it up pretty well outside of the hotel edifice itself. There was a homepage redirect that I’m assuming logged your MAC and issued you an IP assignment, but that took just a second, and then you had a wide open connection.

So here’s my question/idea: Is there any reason that the hotel couldn’t set up its own computer somewhere on the subnet with iTunes running? Leave the iTunes sharing open, and rip music to the computer for whatever theme you wish…over the holidays, Christmas music. Perhaps focus on local artists, or bands that play in the clubs around the hotel. I read the iTunes EULA, and there are sub-licensed sections that are pretty picky about what it can be used for…but it’s not a directly commercial use to simply have the system sitting on your subnet, is it? I only focus on iTunes because it makes streaming so easy, and with more and more hotels offering free wifi/internet access, it could be a fun marketing point….streaming music associated with the hotel/area/season.

Now, there may be a dozen issues here, from broadcast licensing (is it broadcasting?) to copyright issues (it would have to be streaming only).

That said, I think there’s a great business opportunity here. Forego iTunes, and go straight for a cheap Linux box with streaming capabilities and a decent interface…there’s software out there that you can use to put something like this together for nearly nothing. Charge the hotel for support, and take payment from artists/record companies/whoever to include their content on the server. The hotel guests get free streaming music that they may not hear anywhere else, the hotel gets a great marketing point, the artists get extra exposure…and if you could get a chain to buy in, you could make a decent amount of money on this.

So: anyone know any venture capital/angels looking for an investment? I could make this happen if I could get a hotel chain on board.

By griffey

Jason Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of IT at the University of TN at Chattanooga.

Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. His newest book, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, will be published by MIT Press in 2024.

He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.

Jason can be stalked obsessively online, and spends his free time with his daughter Eliza, reading, obsessing over gadgets, and preparing for the inevitable zombie uprising.

2 replies on “iTunes idea”

this wouldn’t be too hard at all. get a linux box up and running with daapd or mt-daapd and you’re all set. fedora 3 is really easy to get setup (i have a server running at home) for moderately knowledgeable geeks. not sure if anyone has a nice easy-to-use itunes compatible server for windows or mac (besides itunes itself).

Actually, I think the W hotel in San Francisco does something similar. Plus, they have several iTunes events.
I’ve used the wireless at all the Kimpton hotels we’ve stayed at, and its remarkably easy and free. In fact, the signal was so strong I had no trouble doing work for hours each day in San Francisco when Kevin was at Java One. A lot of hotels I’ve stayed in have either really weak signals or charge for impossible-to-manage internet connections that require installing software. bleh. So, yay for the Kimptons!
And if you’re seriously looking for an Angel Investor, there are tons here in Cincy. Every networking event I go to, I meet a couple. None of them want to talk to me when they find out I’m a sole proprietor who doesn’t want their investment.

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