SpeedPlexer Blog

California, a state deeply in debt (about $19 billion), is considering making money by selling digital advertising on car license plates. They’ll remain static, just showing the usual license plate number and registration while in motion, but if the car stops for more than 4 seconds, it could show any number of things while the license plate number fades into the background or minimizes, but it won’t disappear.  

Options include advertising sold through the Department of Motor Vehicles, emergency amber alerts or traffic information, or personalized messages like a favorite sports team or school affiliation.  The device would be controlled from inside the vehicle, but of course, emergency updates would have to be sent using Wi-Fi internet speed.

While it certainly could be distracting, it might also help entertain people during stop-and-go traffic. People who commented on the article posted on Yahoo made some good points:

• “How hard is it gonna be to steal that identification and put it on yours? Now I have to worry about my license plate going out?”
• “Will these plates have their own power source? Just what I need, something else to drain power from my car’s battery.”
• “I would only be for such and idea if it would pay for license, registration fees and full coverage insurance for me and my vehicles. Why should only the government benefit from ads displayed on my vehicle?”
• “What about people that use a small truck to pull a trailer? I routinely dent up my plate…”
• “I can’t stand people tracking me as it is, and I’m not going to voluntarily let them track me through my license plate.”

How great is this?  Starting July 1st, Starbucks will be offering all customers at all of their company-owned locations FREE wireless internet access. The franchise stores aren’t in on the deal. But if they’re smart, they’ll join in the fun with internet speed. Why? Because it’s brilliant.

No more multi-step process to get online, or worrying if you’d exceeded the two-hour mark for free internet access with their Starbucks loyalty card. That’d mean you’d have to start paying $3.99 and hour. How much more encouraged will you be to choose the local Starbucks over elsewhere when you can get delicious and comparatively healthy food and beverages all day, plus good music and a nice clean atmosphere? 

Of course the above time limit probably helped to encourage people to move on and not take up space without buying more stuff. The thing is, Starbucks has been losing customers to McDonald’s ever since they started offering free wi-fi and cheaper McCafe coffee not long ago. 

Chris Brogan, president of a social media marketing agency called New Marketing Labs, blogged about it this way: “They said, ‘Not only do we have free Wi-Fi, but we’re going to offer this huge raft of digital products you can get while you’re here, and you like our coffee better anyway.’ ” That should be on Starbucks billboards!

The Starbucks Digital Network, will (eventually) sell you stuff online. For now, it hopes to attract people with free access to paid sites like The Wall Street Journal and Zagat, plus partnerships will allow them to offer free iTunes downloads and previews of not-yet-released movies and albums. They’ll also feature local content based on the location and help for job-seekers using Starbucks as their resume-sending base.