Twitter Tax Break, A San Francisco Political Fight!

Twitter Tax Break, http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/

The Twitter Tax break would give companies in the economically depressed Mid-Market and Tenderloin neighborhoods, be exempt from paying the payroll tax for new employees. The exemption would be good for six years and would not apply to workers already on the payroll.
The legislation also exempt affected companies from paying payroll taxes on employee stock options if they go public during this six years and would save a bundle for involved companies.

But the board of supervisors are up in arms. Some supports the measure while others looking to bring it in front of voters in November.

Twitter, a private company, is thinking of moving to Brisbane from it's current location, south of market, is of course looking for the break. If approved, Twitter would move in to a place on Market street by ninth street. Twitter is projecting to hire about 2650 employees by 2013. Twitter currently has 350 employees.

read more on SFGate.

iProtest With iPad, Steve Jobs Should Be Proud!

iProtest With iPad, Steve Jobs Should Be Proud! http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
Why waste paper and paint when you got an iPad. This should catch up very well in San Francisco! Brilliant! Lithuania people and Police must be good, not to smash his iPad!

Create Apps For San Francisco! It Is A Contest, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom,

San Francisco City App Store & Contest

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, made a post on Techcrunch requesting all to join in a contest for creating Apps for San Francisco.
(Mayor Newsom has been selected to the office, twice and is the youngest mayor to be voted in in 100 years! City has seen many new developments since his appointment and continue to do so in all departments. But if you read more into his campaign, you will notice that he wants do more, he wants to bring "EDUCATION" back to California, I am really looking forward to see that Mayor.)
Getting back to the City App Store and the App contest, the app contest is coming up in the foot steps of the success with City App Store  which became a hit in just six weeks. The City App Store utilizes data provided by DataSF.org.
So far the response has been tremendous and Mayor want all the talented developer to join and make San Francisco a better place for everyone from Moms(Mom Maps) to Dads(Dadnab) and beyond.

We were not sure what people would create with the data, but we knew that many of our talented developers wanted to help improve San Francisco. Now, our community is coming together to help fill our app store with even more civic apps.

 Mayor is not alone in this calling, The Center for Investigative Reporting’s California Watch reporting team, Spot.Us, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, MAPLight.org, the Gov 2.0 Summit, Sun Light Foundation and others are joining forces to sponsor the first DataSF App Contest on Nov. 7.

If you are interested, Register here for the DataSF App Contest. If you are interesting in sponsoring the App Contest, visit the Spot.Us pag

Read the complete post at TechCrunch.

Earthlink cuts ties to San Francisco Wi-Fi deal!

Earthlink Chief Executive Rolla Huff told Newsom during a telephone call "they were not going to be able to fulfill their end of the bargain," said Ballard. "Mr. Huff made it clear it wasn't going to happen with Earthlink; they are getting out of the Wi-Fi business."

Earthlink and Google Inc. beat out five other contractors who bid last year on the contract to create a citywide wireless network here. Like Philadelphia, Chicago and several other cities, San Francisco has been competing to become the first large U.S. city to make the Internet available throughout its borders.

Under the four-year agreement, which was never finalized due to a political tug-of-war between the mayor and the governing Board of Supervisors, Earthlink was supposed to bear the estimated $14-to-$17-million cost of building and maintaining the Wi-Fi system.

Despite Earthlink Inc.'s decision to bow out of its deal to help provide free wireless Internet access throughout San Francisco, the mayor here remains committed to the idea.

"We are still committed to free Wi-Fi, and we are going to get it done — quickly," said Nathan Ballard, a spokesman for Mayor Gavin Newsom. "We are disappointed, but we will not lose momentum here."

Read more at muniwireless

Tags: San Francisco, San Francisco wireless, Google, Earthlink, Free wi-Fi, Mayor Gavin Newsom

Meraki wireless mesh may win in San francisco where Google, Earthlink and Mayor Newsom are struggling

About eight months ago I thought that Meraki may come to San Francisco;
VOIP IP Telephony: Meraki wireless mesh may come to San francisco
Now I read that it in the city now according to an article on Technology Review. Meraki a commercialized the ideas born out of MIT's RoofNET, have come to San Francisco by distributing some 200 wireless routers to city residents in the past couple of months; the routers have been accessed by more than 6,000 city residents who can pick up the Wi-Fi signal. Meraki is now offering to expand the program to give away a few thousand routers, thereby building a free Wi-Fi mesh-network system from the rooftops, balconies, and windows of anyone who wants to participate. The program is called "Free the Net."
Looks like Google is still behind the deal, (Google is an investor in Meraki), according to the same article, Michael McCarthy, a technical consultant at the Booker T. Washington Community Services Center, took up Meraki's offer in order to connect a housing development called Westside Courts in San Francisco's Western Addition after he priced Cisco mesh-network routers at several thousand dollars apiece. Meraki and Google volunteers helped McCarthy decide where to install 22 routers in the center's two buildings. Now about 60 residents are online, and on any given evening, some 40 of them (mostly teenagers) download up to five gigabytes of data. What's more, anyone in the area with a Wi-Fi-enabled laptop can tap into the network and get connected for free.
So by the time Mayor Newsom brings the Wireless project to ballot and get support we may be surfing, somewhat, on the same network, he has been working so hard to bring about. Good luck Mr. Mayor! I need that wireless connection.

Technology Review:A Free Mesh Network for San Francisco

Geemodo: San Francisco Google Free Wireless gets a Blow, almost literally
Meraki Networks
MIT Roofnet

Tags: San Francisco, wireless, Google, Meraki, earthlink, mesh network, roofnet, MIT, Mayor Newsom

San Francisco wants more with free wireless.

VoIP IP Telephony @ http://snapvoip.blogspot.com
I have reported this before under the following post;
VOIP IP Telephony: San Francisco's Google Free Wireless finally on the go and now I hear that Board of Supervisors are putting holt to Mayor Newsom's plans to give free wireless internet access to the masses in San francisco.
In April, San Francisco chose its plan from among six. Atlanta-based EarthLink would create a wireless network and charge customers $21.95 a month. Mountain View-based Google planned to rent space on the network and offer a slower, ad-supported version for free.
Now after more than two years later, with Newsom having signed a contract with the Internet providers in January, the Board of Supervisors last week declined to even consider the deal. The board, whose approval is required, decided instead to investigate turning the project into a city-owned public utility.
Elsewhere in the press reported that;
"Google is considering targeting ads by location, so, for example, someone in Union Square searching the Web for a shoe store might see offers for nearby shops first.

But the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other advocates raised concerns about EarthLink's privacy policy.

They also complained that Goggle's ability to track the whereabouts of network users could prove irresistible to law enforcement (Google said people worried about such things could sign up using false names).

Additionally, some citizens of this high-tech city aren't willing to settle for just any wireless connection, even if it's free. EarthLink's paid service is about three times faster than Goggle's free one.

The speed of the free service "is so 1997, said Ralf Muehlen, a software developer who operates a small free wireless network here and wants the city to push EarthLink for better technology. "I'm a techie. It's too slow for me." "

Tags: San Francisco, WiFi, wireless