Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Always connected...even in the clouds


Just yesterday, Foursquare enabled the new Mile High Badge, which can be received when you check in on a Gogo Inflight Wifi-enabled flight. Gogo connection prices range from $4.95 for flights up to 1.5 hours and an unlimited account is currently on sale for $34.95 (with a discounted first month) for $19.95.

What baffles my mind is that you can check into wireless Internet 40,000 feet above the ground. In fact, I had a friend on a flight yesterday who tweeted from the air.

I’m not going to lie; I always have found the rule of turning off cell phones and “portable electronics” somewhat relaxing. As we continue to become more fast-paced and the world becomes more consumed with workaholics (especially in American culture), I always found it nice that for a few hours, we weren’t connected.

Sure, you could still pull out your laptop and work on a PowerPoint or report, but if you absolutely needed to pull info from the net, you were SOL. Nothing left to do but give up, sit back and relax…maybe for the first time in awhile.

I always liked the idea that for a little while, we weren’t connected. Passengers had the opportunity to talk to those around them and be a little social, and not in the social media sense that is. Their brains were able to take a break from all the information and their eyes took a break from the strain of the computer.

Don’t get me wrong, I spend all day on the computer and am a huge social media and Internet nerd, but I did like the idea of not being connected for once. Now —if you’re willing to pay — you can be connected anytime…at any height.

So I guess where to go from here is just to embrace this technology and take it to new heights, literally. Just think how much more productive we’ll be able to be if we can be connected anywhere.

What's next? Wifi on public subways? Oh wait. That's happening too. Check out the article here.

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