Internet Cafes and Coffee

Very often, so-called Internet Cafes do not have coffee. If you go to a local shop here in the Philippines and order coffee, around 8 out of 10 establishments will not be able to satisfy your caffeine craving.

So what is about Internet "Cafes" not having coffee? Shouldn't we just call them "Computer Shops" instead?

First, let's take a look back in history to understand more about this dilema.

The concept of an Internet Cafe was attributed to one Ivan Pope in 1994 when he suggested this novel concept in London. In that same year, the first Internet Cafe, Binary Cafe, opened in Canada in June of 2004. The full name of the establishment was actually The Binary Café and Hexidecimal Emporium, a name which reflected the two main components of the space -- serving food and drinks, and selling cyberpunk-related books, magazines, and zines. (Source: Wikipedia)

Since then, coffee and the web was a combo made in heaven. The marriage was inevitable as more cafes sprung during the 90's to cater to the growing demand of e-mail and connectivity

In our country, the first cafes were basically offline - no internet whatsover. The establishments during that time catered to LAN games such as Starcraft and Counterstrike. And coffee was the last on the list of priorities for the owners. But the term "Cafe" lingered on and became generic for any computer shop which rent out PCs for games or internet surfing.

Perhaps companies such as Nescafe can look into the possibility of tapping into the vast number of cafes in the Philippines (estimates place it at around 8,000 establishments with an average of 15 seats each). Truly, coffee and the web (and gaming to some extent) is still a good combo and "owning" this novel concept can spur creative applications for both concepts and products/service.

All this writing now made me crave for caffeine. Time to go out for cofee.

Anyone care to join me?

Regards

GM T