Two big ideas
I’ve had a lot of ideas this past weekend, most of them silly and pointless, but two of them stand out as standup ideas that could have a big effect.
Orlando was one of the first cities to adapt the RFID tags for use in tolls on our toll roads. We called it “E-Pass” and it’s been quite successful. Recently the units we have in the car for E-Pass have begun to beep in the vehicle to alert us that the account has been charged successfully. But what if the units didn’t charge your bank account, instead it plays a short commercial whenever you drive through a toll. Thus the advertiser is paying for your tolls. Now I realize that few advertisers would pay $0.75 per play, but I still think the idea has merit.
Update: My friends and I kept tossing this idea back and forth and the idea has it’s definite set of problems. The price for ads would be steep. There’s no way to guarantee the driver is listening. The radio could be on or they could muffle the speaker. But it isn’t an unsolvable series of problems.
The other idea is the one I think makes the most sense. Paypal has a stranglehold with online payment. A few companies have come up and tried to break the grip, Obopay is the most recent one I know of. Google Checkout is also gaining a following. But the most logical answer would be for Bank of America, or some other big bank in America, to start a competing company. They could waive the fees for any transaction which uses one of their bank accounts and charge fees for those who don’t use their bank. It’s so simple it seems like pure brilliance.
June 26th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
You can solve that problem by having the EPass box send a signal to use the car’s speakers – regardless of whether the radio is on or not.
June 26th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
I considered that, the problem is that it would need to be hooked into the car’s sound system to do that. One idea I had would be that the pass would have two large buttons on it. Say they’re labeled “1″ and “2.” At the start of the commercial it would say “Press 1″ or “Press 2″ and then at the end it would say one or the other again. So if you’re listening it’s an easy thing to do, but if you’re not listening then you only have a 25% chance of guessing right.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
http://www.ewsp.com.au/products/default.htm
tweak the application of this device and it could work.