Potrero Hill, San Francisco

Potrero Hill’s Axis Cafe and Couleur Cafe are the first San Francisco wi-fi hotspots hosting Placesite - an open platform for web apps tied to physical spaces, aspiring to strengthen local community.

According to Placesite:

Everyone who opens a Web browser in a PlaceSite place sees a host of digital community services by, for and about people who spend time in that place. These services include profiles of the other people there, and a chat room and message forums tied to the place.

Placesite is essentially social networking tied to a geographical location … neat.

And for you techies our there, Sean Savage drops word that “we’re releasing our router software under the GPL for free download, hacking, etc. so people can set up their own PlaceSite, within 2 weeks.”

As Potrero Hill is a haven for techies (home to digg, dogster, laughing squid and shawn fanning of napster fame), I’m sure there will be a flood of PlaceSite places on the hill.

• Local Content and Social Software for Wireless Hotspots [IFTF]