I’m a fairly chronic reader of GOOD’s blogs, and I think most of their content is insightful, educational, and even a little enlightened.
that being said, I was a little skeptical when I saw their post on google’s new android app, open spot. open spot uses google maps technology interactively, in a somewhat similar way to latitude, except instead of getting realtime info on where your friends are, you get info on what parking spaces are available. open spot relies on users to mark a parking spot that’s open, either when they leave it or if they see one available. for every spot a user marks, they get one “karma point”, so they can keep track of how many spots they’ve marked.
at this point I have a mighty “2″ karma points.
typically I loathe anything that makes driving easier or more convenient. but I was still curious about this software- I was interested to see how the hive mind would utilize it and how well it would work. plus, driving is a reality in most places in the country, so if there’s an app that can help minimize unnecessary exhaust from searching for a parking spot, wouldn’t that be a good thing? the people at planet green would say so- they ran an article on how to parallel park, with the intent to make parking more efficient and cut down on emissions. if the seconds saved parking more quickly are a benefit, so are the minutes spent looking for a spot.
so open spot could help with emissions reductions… if people were actually using it. I live in LA which, along with houston, is probably the city in most dire need of open spot- and I still haven’t seen an available parking spot posted by someone else. I’m not sure how many people in LA are on android phones (open spot was created by google labs, and isn’t available for any other platform yet), and the first blog post I saw about it was only three weeks ago, but I wonder if there are other factors at work.
having worked in santa monica for almost 5 years, close to 2 of which I was without company parking, my experience was that your regular parking spots were a coveted, closely guarded secret. the days I did have to drive (most of the time I would ride my bike), I would find myself seeing the same cars cruising around the same areas looking for an empty spot. if I was approaching one of my regular parking zones, I would look around to see if there was anyone around, and wait before actually parking.
the problem with swarm intelligence, is that the swarm needs to want to share that information. in the early days of limewire, you could opt not to share any of your files. people uploading your files would effect your download speeds, so many people chose not to share anything. at one point, there was literally nothing being shared except for viruses- which almost created a collapse of the system.
this phenomenon is similar to something I was talking to my brother rob about last weekend. creating user incentives is something that he’s written about in the past, and is an issue he’s involved with gearburger. gearburger is working really well for the people who use it- too well, so that people don’t want to share the source of their time-sensitive gear deals and increase competition. user incentives work best is situations where popularity is an unequivocal benefit- and where the users don’t feel like their secret stashes, whether they’re deals on equipment, bandwidth, or parking spots, are being compromised.
so, assuming that people using open spot is a good thing, what are ways to incentivize users sharing their parking spots in traffic heavy locations like LA? leave suggestions in the comments.
