Seeing Forests

Just saw a piece on Roximity on Denver Fox News. Impressed with the coverage they’ve gotten. Impressed with landing Ford as their industrial strategic partner. For those of us in this space, the automobile as a nexus for local has always been something of a holy grail. It’s been obvious but always assumed the auto companies would do this themselves or partner with one of the entrenched data providers. Amazing to see that this niche was actually open to start-ups. Hats off, surely. The real issue I’ve never been able to see how to overcome is the very real concern of the distracted driver. How is it that with all of the pressure against interacting with mobile devices while driving - which can be measurably shown to result in highway fatalities - are drivers supposed to deal with fielding offers while driving? I have a hard time differentiating among LivingSocial offers sitting at my laptop with a cup of coffee in the morning. How am I supposed to do that at 80 miles an hour (er, um, 55)? I’m generally uncomfortable cutting across four lanes of traffic to take an exit I accidentally missed. Doing so in response to an ad screaming EAT AT JOE’s might just make me want to test my Hollywood driving skills. Reminded me of the sarcastic presentation I made in 2008 for Where 2.0 about MapSpam in 2010. Looks like I was a couple of years too late: http://www.seeingforests.com/MapSpam2010Half.mov

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