Grabb-It

That's AMAZING! The world absolutely needs MORE advertising! I'm looking forward to the time people will rent their cheeks or foreheads with temporary tattoos! God...

I loooooove this. We covered startups designed specifically for ride-sharing drivers in the AngelList Weekly last month. Short term: (Some) happier drivers, neutral riders. Some percentage of hustling drivers will make extra cash by advertising when other drivers on the platform aren't. Long term: Neutral drivers, happier riders. Prices for fares will drop as a majority of the drivers on the platform start advertising with Grabb-It, Wrapify, Cargo, etc. Riders will pay less because drivers will be able to get paid in other ways (other than direct rider revenue).

Is this the direction we want to go as a society? I personally hate the gas stations that now force you to watch and listen to ads at the pump. But at least I can choose not to go to those gas stations. This forces advertising on everyone without giving them any choice. I know billboards do the same thing, but I don't love billboards either.

Also, this seems like it'll work against removing distractions for drivers.

Pros:

- New source of rev for some drivers

Cons:

- More distractions for all drivers

- Forcing more ads into people's lives without offering them any choice

Im not gonna lie, I literally hate this idea. Uber makes Billions in revenue a year and you hire terrible drivers, yet you can't even pay them properly so more ideas like this come out to try and sell us crap we don't want all to the highest advertising bidder. Have you been to Miami beach? Have you watched the steady stream of airplanes ruining your vibes pitching the latest crappy club? It will be the same thing over and over with bad ads but thus time riders get to also pay for it...

Weirdly I've thought a lot about advertising + rideshare. Billboard-like advertising is an obvious solution (similar to what many taxi cabs already do), but I don't know if it's the right solution. While I do think enough incentives are lined up in this scenario, it feels wrong (to me). I hate the idea of further polluting our shared spaces with more ads. I wonder what's become of the companies who do intra-car advertising (i.e. have ad displays inside the car)? Obviously the number of eyeballs viewing the ad goes way down, but I think this is an opportunity for deeper personalization without being obnoxious. Uber already knows who you are, where you are, where you're going, and the time. Wouldn't it be cool if, say, you're going to a restaurant and you're shown dessert spots nearby with coupons? Or if you're going to a ball game, have vendors offer incentives to visit their stall/restaurant? There's probably a tasteful way to do this. CRAZY, DUMB THOUGHT: If we're sticking with the whole external ad thing, what if the rider can choose what type of content to show? Imagine you're in a car with friends on the way to a club, and you're getting hiphy and start playing the new Nicki Minaj song. Would Nicki Minaj be opposed if her music video was playing on the external display. There are so many things problematic with this particular scenario including music rights and age-appropriate content, but you get the idea. Could be kinda fun.

I love the futuristic look of this. Great for rideshare drivers!

i once went to pitch a similar ideea to a VC fund and the response

was no and the reason was : when we started to speak there were 1920192K blogs

and 900000000 milion impressions available. in the last 10 minutes that numbers increased with 0,005 percent. The problem is not with advertising spaces. I can get now bloggers, vloggers, adwords, twitter, fb, instagram, ppc, outdoor, programatic, teads, prerools, postroools, midrols, etc. If i cannot measure them they are useless.

7 years later i'd say they were right.

my 2 cents.

Pros:

errrrrm...novelty?

Cons:

lack of measururement for advertisers,lack of demographics.