Facebook And Cisco Let Brick-&-Mortars Demand Customers Check-In To Get Wi-Fi

By Josh ConstineTech Crunch Restaurants, hotels, and other businesses are spending a lot to provide customers with free Wi-Fi. Today Facebook and Cisco roll out a way to help any brick-and-mortar recoup its costs by asking users to check-in to get Internet access. Those who oblige get dropped on the business’ Facebook Page, and their anonymous, aggregate demographic info is passed to the merchant.     The Cisco and Facebook partnership extends a pilot of “Facebook Wi-Fi” that began running with 25 businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area last year. The test showed that businesses tripled their daily check-in count by using the system.