Traffic.com will eat our lunch
Don Day April 14th, 2008
Just last week, Cory noted how a broad spectrum of innovators are stealing the ball from broadcasters when it comes to traffic. I just watched a presentation from Navteq/Traffic.com that brings the point home. Though the demo was aimed at broadcasters - showing off the latest technology and interactive broadcast maps, it served more to drive home the point that the traffic franchise will leave TV - and fast. Traffic.com’s proprietary system of sensors, probes, reporting and other add-ons is an expensive proposition for the company — but it will increasingly own the space - leaving TV sites to beg for scraps and pay hefty license fees to get decent traffic data online. In many markets, the only thing more important than news and weather — is traffic…
3 Comments Add your own
1. Aaron | April 14th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Traffic.com may eat our lunch some day, but today it can’t find my house. It’s not a difficult address, but it looks like traffic can’t parse it. Worse, instead of telling me it can’t find my address, it guesses — and it’s a terrible guess.
Given that, I certainly wouldn’t trust it to route me to an address I’ve never been to before.
Their network of sensors may be the bee’s knees, but if you don’t nail the basics (routing and maps), it doesn’t make a bit of difference.
2. Dash | April 14th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
The “Big Lie” is “Traffic.com’s proprietary system of sensors.” While they have them in two cities, the data they gather in every other city is from sensors owned by each state’s DOT. That data is free to all who want it, the tax payers pay for it.
3. Rocker | April 15th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Traffic may be one of those areas where we say “you know what, we really can’t compete, and that’s o.k.”. We’re not going to be able to all things to all people. I’d be a lot more worried about giving up on weather, or breaking news. Sports is another area where I’m not sure it’s worth the effort to try to establish ourselves as leading sources.
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