Network applications

Here's an interesting article from Muniwireless by Greg Richardson about local government networks (mostly in the US). He makes the point that
"The real opportunity for both the profit-motivated private sector and the community-motivated public sector is not getting people on the Internet, but providing additional network services, applications, e-commerce solutions and other value-added services once they get there".

It's true-- networks are becoming commoditised-- the value is the application facing the consumer. But what kind of applications? Perhaps the market will come up with applications linked to place? hopefully not just boring advertisements...