LiquidSpace Puts Coworking Spaces Everywhere
One of the hottest events in tech community, SxSWi 2011 has just ended and it attracted the biggest names in Hollywood, politics and the music scene, but the IT folks will not let them steal the show just like that. With industry leaders like Google fighting Bing with recent accusations that the latter is intentionally copying their search results, and the subsequent launch of Internet Explorer 9, is there a room for the start-ups to showcase their goods? But, of course! LiquidSpace is part of the list of promising newcomers that came out of SXSW 2011.
Prior to the SXSW opening, LiquidSpace Co-Founder Mark Gilbreath explains an interview with Fast Company the idea behind the creation of this app. “The corporate office is becoming a ghost town. Increased demand for the comfort of home telecommuting and the need to be constantly tethered to the Internet has left a resource gap for mobile workers seeking on-the-go office capabilities.
"Hotels and Starbucks are a frustratingly insufficient solution for a reliable Internet connection and private conference room, especially for those that hop from appointment to appointment around town. To solve the problem, LiquidSpace users can search for nearby office space, just like one would for a restaurant on Google Maps. In addition to the hours and location of nearby coffee shops and libraries, office owners can rent out space for workers looking for more capabilities. Pricing, reservations, and scheduling are all handled seamlessly through the app’s ecosystem (and LiquidSpace takes a cut of each transaction).”
LiquidSpace is a free app for smartphones that sniffs for available workspace for rent near your current location. When a user accesses the app, a list of available work offices and spaces will be pop out. They can readily reserve and check for prices. Venues range from hotels, conference rooms and spaces for rents. This particular service is rather helpful for startup companies like them. Likewise, vendors can freely list themselves and offer their spots.
The potential of LiquidSpace was further explored with its team-up with turnstone at SXSW 2011. With a very creative and timely concept, it may be another breakthrough unfolding before our eyes.
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins has always followed closely the coworking business, but LiquidSpace, a new SxSW entrant into this area, took him by surprise, and promises to inject a new era of growth for this sector. He’s been covering the re-emergence of coworking since his days as Associate Editor at Mashable, and has continued to keep tabs. LiquidSpace ties into this world by turning every spare bit of space into a possible workplace.
As Gilbreath and co-founder Doug Marinaro mentioned in their interview with Hopkins, not only does LiquidSpace provide opportunity for business to dip their toe into the world of coworking (and in so doing, bring in new revenue streams at best, and at least provide value-added services for preferred clients), but it also makes achievable some measure of sustainability.
"While commercial real estate continues to expand in the area around my hometown, Dallas, we continued to be rank highly in the country in available commercial real estate per capita," said Hopkins. "In San Francisco and Silicon Valley, organizations spend billions acquiring bigger and better offices on a regular basis. Meanwhile, there is scads of available, unused spaces all around them."
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