Putting Web 2.0, GPS, and Advertising to Work
Traffic.com, the leading provider of personalized traffic information for drivers coast to coast, is empowering Labor Day weekend travelers with a full range of solutions to help drivers manage the roadway congestion they will encounter during holiday weekend travel. As the #1 source for drivers who want to take control of the roadways, Traffic.com offers free, real-time traffic services available online, on-demand, and on-the-go in 50 U.S. metropolitan areas. Before millions of people hit the roads for the last hurrah of the summer, drivers in select cities can review pre-Labor Day traffic trends from recent years.
To help 2006 Labor Day weekend travelers decide the best time to leave for their holiday roadtrip, Traffic.com gives drivers a view of past traffic congestion patterns in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Diego for the Fridays before the Labor Day weekend. Based on its proprietary Traffic Information Management System (TIMS) technology and its incomparable database of real-time and historical traffic data, Traffic.com has produced exclusive, easy-to-read charts that show the Jam Factor ratings throughout the Friday before Labor Day for 2004 and 2005 in Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia and for 2005 in San Diego.
Traffic.com’s customizable traffic services give drivers exactly the traffic information they need - whenever, wherever, and however they want it - completely free of charge. Users can create and save their daily commutes or weekend travel routes by visiting www.traffic.com. Following registration and the set up of custom traffic reports and alerts, users receive mytraffic.com(TM) personalized traffic services, which include phone alerts, mobile e-mail alerts, and desktop e-mail alerts. For traffic information on-demand at any time, all drivers can call Traffic.com’s traffic hotline at 1-866-MY-TRAFC (1-866-698-7232)… Full Article Here:
My regulars know that this is the weekend (technically only “almost” the weekend, but how many are sneaking out early, eh?), time for some “eye candy”. I’m providing a bit more than just candy this weekend.
Here’s a little screen cap of a site you really want to visit: www.traffic.com
These guys have really gotten off to a great start on a couple of my favorite subjects:
1. Using anonymous data from phones and other tracking devices to measure the flow of traffic, instead of expensive sensores.
2. Putting data in one place. There’s a lot of info that this company doesn’t originally collect, but “merely” scrapes the data from sites where it’s already available and places in one spot so it’s useful.
3. Losing the hopelessly clueless subscription model. In the past few years I’ve seen many schemes like this and even consulted on a couple ideas. All of them were lost in the mire of ‘people will pay for this because it’s useful’.
Wake up and smell the coffee, folks. People won’t pay for what’s useful, they’ll pay for what they want. Take the iPod as a good example. It’s a nice little white box with ear buds. It plays back MP3 files. It costs quite a bit of money. It’s a very hot seller, world-wide. There are hundreds, if not thousands of MP3 players that do what iPod does, cost less, and do much more. They are useful;. iPod is kewl. End of story.
If you want to make an application self-supporting (or even a gold mine) on the web, learn to use advertising.
Anyway, who wants to read this on the start of a great Labor Day weekend? Fill the tank (gas is a little cheaper, surprise, surprise).
If you’re travelling, traffic.com might make it more enjoyable.