Jordon sniffed out this post: The rise of the cafe start-up

In a guest blog post over at GigaOm, Jackson West of SFist writes about the continued emergence of an Internet start-up culture in Wi-Fi-equipped cafes around San Francisco. (While Jackson puts an “indie” spin on the trend by specifically NOT mentioning Starbucks, the overwhelming anecdotal evidence here in New York City and other cities suggests that the corner Starbucks – no matter how unhip – is also a potential hotspot of entrepreneurial activity.) Rather than work alone in lofts or garages, Web 2.0 entrepreneurs would rather seek out social interaction in “third places” like Internet cafes:

“Forget Palo Alto garages – San Francisco coffee shops are where to get your startup off the ground. Internet cafes are emerging as an important place to get work done, hold meetings and network. Since writers, designers, developers and anyone else who can work from their laptop are going to show up, you can even recruit talent, publicize your project and even demo your product for potential users and investors.”

With all our technology, we still need the human touch. A third place — I like the concept of working from Starbucks, although it probably wouldn’t be practical for me. Maybe I’ll try it some day.