Maybe the focus on cities, while great for the lookup scenario, should not play such a big role when adding data points. My suggestion: just open it up, have a form where any member can add a coffee shop, at any location (Google Maps-powered). As site admins you could review the submissions later and sort it out.
For example, I was initially motivated to add some places near me. That's in Germany, so no cities there yet. This means I've got to jump through the hoop of adding a city, at which point any user who was previously excited about adding stuff to the database becomes stranded and loses interest. I would like to add sites in different cities, so technically I would have to open up requests for 3 cities - in a sparsely populated area like Germany that's not feasible. I'm more interested in how far away a location is than what city it is in.
Also, you should make use of the browser Geo API.
The Starbucks in Frankfurt near the old stock exchange is pretty good if you can get a place at the big table it's even office-like, and generally shared by people doing the same thing. The Starbucks in Heidelberg works for me, but it's relatively small. There are also several non-chained coffee shops in these cities where you can feel right at home.
Also, if you're ever in Austria, Vienna is absolutely beautiful for coffee shop work.
The secret to finding these things in Germany is to know they come in clusters. For example, Berlin, Frankfurt and Heidelberg are pretty decent and you can find several nice coffee shops there. Find cities that are somewhat cosmopolitan, because size is a bad predictor for coffee shop density here. In between there are vast stretches of absolutely nothing, but then again distances in Germany are generally ridiculously small even though Germans don't think so.
But I am not creating yet another web login and set of credentials and blah blah blah ... and no, I am not "part of the tribe" (whatever that means).
You shouldn't charge people (in the form of time, energy and mindshare) to give you free content.
I have a few spots in mind from when I was in Montreal but am currently in Nebraska.
I do think it's good to be mindful that you are utilizing a business's space and facilities, and they are able to provide these to you by selling food and drinks. So you should try to be a courteous customer and support their business.
But of course, don't be a dick. If you're taking over a table for a couple hours you should buy some stuff.
One suggestion, although it's helpful to have Wi-Fi passwords listed, I think your team should confirm with the business before posting it. They might want to be picky about who they give it to. I feel like me asking a coffee shop person for the password is an implicit question of whether it's OK for me to hang out with the laptop for a couple hours, and also gives them the chance to tell me if it's down right now.
I really have to wonder how the owners feel about all the other people doing exactly the same thing.
My thoughts on the matter is that so long as I always have drink/food in front of me (and I'm not purposely taking my time) then I'm probably earning my keep.
I've never been at a cafe that's run out of seats, either.
The problem with our library is that even though they have a 100mb internet connection, they filter everything. You can't use Git or SSH for example, so it does me no good as a place to work.
(There's an Enoch Pratt branch directly across from my favored coffee place in Roland Park, which would be just dandy if it didn't have the weirdest opening hours known to man. Closed on Thursdays and Sundays? Who does that?)
Do people actually find it productive to work in a coffee shop? There will be even more distractions and noise than my office.
Alone, I get distracted easily. Around people, I'm less likely to browse away from work because I don't want to be seen as a slacker.
At home or the office, I get no sense of urgency. At a coffee shop, there's all sorts of time limits: from the draining battery to the feeling that after a few hours my welcome will be overstayed. So stuff needs to get done... rapidly.
When I'm near familiar people, my mind focuses a lot on their voices. When around strangers, it doesn't care; their voices and other sounds blur together into background noise.
I guess you could say that working from coffee shops is one way I "hack" myself into being productive. So I'm not surprised to see others enjoy working there too. But probably not for the exact same reasons. People's motives and preferences vary greatly.
Also, the distractions in an office are difficult to block because they all seem relevant to me, which puts me in a constant state of being alert to them. In a coffee shop, I know that the noise is completely irrelevant to me, so it just moves into the background.
If they stand behind me I get the nagging feeling that they might want something even if they don't, and that's way more distracting than a cafe. Even if they're quiet.
Also, the lack of wifi helps aid concentration.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/04/working-...
Price: For example at some places I might recommend there's a "per hour" charge. Examples: The Workshop Cafe in SF is $2 a hour. The Epicenter Cafe in SF gives you passwords that are only valid for 1-2 hours depending on what you buy. The Terminal in Tokyo is $3 per half/hour or $22 max for the whole day but if you buy a $20 yearly membership it's $12 max for the day. They include unlimited soft drinks (soda, coffee, tea).
I didn't see how I would list that stuff on your site.
Another is I'd like to be able to vote or rate, comment. Maybe like Yelp? I just got to LA, one place that was recommended was "Paper or Plastik Cafe" but I didn't find it very friendly to working. At least half the cafe is marked as "No notebooks allowed" and the area where they are allowed is very dark and uninviting. Maybe it used to be more friendly to workers which is why it was recommended a couple of years ago but I wouldn't recommend it now.
My first thought would be if he allows easy delisting or if it would require some form of legal arm twisting. I'm sure that busier places will not be happy with being on the list.
The "Landesbibliothek" in Stuttgart has real office desks with outlets and wifi. And since I'm a student, I get it all for free.
It's also a nicer atmosphere than in coffee shops. Way less foot traffic and most of the people are silent. Also, noone expects me to buy anything...
This was always an idea in the back of mind to do. I'm glad someone else did it for me :)
Best of luck.
I suppose it is a way to avoid spam though.
I find that an easy setup can handle this kind of traffic, plz fix it :D Nice idea !
Aggressive caching issue maybe?
I'd probably need at least 4-5 solid hours, during the working days of the week. Any other place you know of, please let me know. I'm trying out a few places, but I've found nothing of significance yet.
It may be cultural, but coworfing.com results for my country (Germany) yield only permanently shared office space. They're not places where you can just pop in every once in a while.
