Garmin, Not So Charmin
GPS is great, don’t get me wrong. A few weeks ago when a friend and I, both recent transplants to New York from San Francisco, had to get to Tarrytown, NY, GPS was our savior. But this weekend, it became painfully obvious to me what these GPS systems are lacking…
On the way back from Coney Island on Saturday, my cab driver got us stuck in severe Manhattan traffic due to the closure of a few roads for a street fair. While I did enjoy (sort of) hearing about how my cab driver hates when people block intersections, I missed my train to Washington DC and my cab fare went through the roof.
Fast forward to Sunday, Washington DC. 350,000 Harley bikers participate in Rolling Thunder to raise awareness and honor POWs and MIAs left behind in battle, and closing half of the streets in our nation’s capital. Unaware of this massive parade, a friend and I sat in traffic for 2 hours to go about 10 miles.
Sitting in traffic is kind of like taking a shower — you have a lot of time to think. So I got to thinking: what if there was a central database of all road closures that GPS systems could tap into and inform the driver accordingly to avoid them? It really doesn’t seem like a hard thing to do, since all of these closures are known about far ahead of time, and would be simple for satellite-connected GPS systems to tap into.
Since I was still in traffic after that thought, I had more time to think… GPS is a great technology, but is only as good as the data that it has access to. Getting you from one place to another is a good core competency, but why not extend it by adding other features and services. Once you’ve got a network connection, access to all kinds of data is simple.
LaunchSquad client TimeBridge is a good example of doing one thing really well and adding on features and services to extend that central functionality. TimeBridge is a wizard when it comes to scheduling meetings and sharing availability, but then you can add a conference call line, get a map and directions to the meeting, set up a reservation on OpenTable and more. There’s another pretty successful company that had a similar model centered around search. Anyone?
Maybe some other GPS systems have moved in this direction (traffic data is being used by some of them, but generally not within cities), but it seems like a natural progression AND can make these companies money in addition to revenue from selling the GPS units (many of these services pay affiliates for usage).
Until then, I’ll just have to remember to avoid the Memorial Bridge in Washington next Memorial Day — or buy a Harley and join in.