Gas Station 2.0
I just drove by the Valero gas station that I got gas at last night and noticed that the price had gone down by 1 cent since last night. I thought that, since prices are changing quite frequently, why don’t local stations have digital displays? This led me to think about other ways gas stations could harness technology — if any gas station is going to be wired, it should be a Silicon Valley one. In my thinking I’m inspired by what Hugh MacLeod did with South African winemaker Stormhoek. A Gas Station 2.0 should have its own website, where it prominently displays its latest prices (an RSS feed of the price and email alerts are logical complements). Since it is confident about its prices being reasonable, it should link to gas sites so people can see how it compares. The website should also let users create accounts to view their historical spending and mileage. They should be able to enter the relevant data on the website or at the pump. If they’ve created an account and associated a credit card with it, a customer should be able to just enter a username and password and, if they wish, their current mileage. The customer gets billed and their web account shows their fuel efficiency and other interesting stats. Of course, all this data should be tag-able and shareable. Even more powerful would be all stations of the same brand (or even all stations!) were part of the website. Gas stations in the US are franchises, I believe, so I imagine this would be hard to do, but think of the possibilities!
So why should a gas station should go to all this bother, especially when it seems like it’s going to lower its profits, either by giving competitors proprietary data or by enabling customers to minimize the money they spend? The simple fact is that there is not a lot to distinguish gas stations: the prices tend to be quite similar, at least in an immediate area, and the products are the same (yeah, yeah, Techron is supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread if you listen to Chevron but how many customers pay attention to the various brand name fuels?). As is so apparent on the web, when the products are essentially the same it is the communities that distinguish businesses. Gas Station 2.0 will have a vibrant web community of drivers sharing tips about mileage, favorite gas station stories (”So this guy in a gorilla suit gets out of the car…”), and mashed-up data. I’m sure that whatever money is lost due to increased price competition and more savvy consumers will be more than made up for by the passionate and loyal customers who will repeatedly go out of their way to use Gas Station 2.0, many of which will probably be new customers thanks to the positive publication the web site generates.
So, if you manage a gas station and happen to read this, I’d love to make your website and make you the hottest gas station in town. Email me at peter@beachheadonline.com! =)