How can we keep the petrol companies honest?

Pumped Up
Originally uploaded by lincolnose2

With all the news about petrol prices and their steady upward climb, I wonder if we, the people, can demand clarity from the companies who supply us with much-needed fuel.

I'm not a geek. Not really. I don't know much about programming, but I do know a good idea when I see one.

So here's an idea that presented itself to me: a people-powered website that displays the cheapest petrol prices in the country, or in a particular area. (Okay, it's still a sketchy idea)

There are already some precedents in different industries:

* Houseoftravel.co.nz scrapes the websites of airlines for prices, delivering the lowest price
* Interest.co.nz has a staff that manually check the interest rates from each bank, and their community has begun to help with that manual process.

Is there a way of finding out what's the price of petrol around New Zealand, and what the trends are, so well-prepared drivers can not only check the traffic cams before they set out, but also check where the cheapest petrol is?

Is there a way we could make this mobile? Or at least geotargeted?

What mashups are possible? Google maps seems an obvious choice.

Who would benefit, apart from consumers? Maverick players like Gull - the only petrol company to front on Close Up last night - might be interested, if they're open to transparency.

Industry organisations like the AA might also be interested in being associated with this.

I think there are enough of us with enough skill to make this happen. What do you think?

Would have been seventy

Today my dad, Graeme Young, would have turned 70.

He would have, if he had not lost his life to pneumonia and cancer nearly 30 years ago. I wasn't yet four years old.

Because I was so young, my experiences and memories of Dad are very ... fractured. My picture of him has been formed through the memories of others, "you're just like your father" observations (good and bad), and photos.

In the photo I've chosen, dad was just 15 and starting out at what would be his career of printing. He left school - and eventually home - as early as possible. He and his dad didn't get on. At all.

Printing was his life for much of his twenties, until he realised he needed to extend his skills and make up for his lack of education. Aged 29, he completed his School Certificate by correspondence, and over the next few years studied to be qualified as an office manager.

One of my few full colour memories of Dad is a trip to the office he worked in at Wilson and Horton. When you're three, going on four, there's not such a strong sense of narrative, but there are pictures. Warehouses, shelves, offices, big phones, forklifts... it may as well have been Disneyland. It was the world of business, and I keep some of those feelings even today as I venture out in the big world of business. For that trip, I am forever thankful.

Happy 70th, Dad.

Jump In #20: Geekzone founder Mauricio Freitas

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(More info: http://www.ijump.co.nz ) We meet Mauricio Freitas, founder of Geekzone.co.nz, and also a speaker at the upcoming Interactive Marketing Summit in Auckland, May 26th. (More info at http://www.brightstar.co.nz ) Hear about advertising and the power of communities!

How not to get people to use RSS

Make it like a cause that people "should" support...

(as if we didn't have enough things we "should" be doing. As the guys from The God Journey say, you just end up shoulding all over yourself!)

However, it's good to see a clear explanation of RSS and how to use it. If it's not to your liking, you can always check out our tutorial over at iJump.

Why Apple doesn't get social media

I just listened to Jay Moona's latest Media Driving, and felt stirred up to comment.

It's a subject that comes up quite regularly in conversation with others, so I thought it was worth reposting my comment here:

Hi Jay,

Great episode, and I agreed with your sentiments about Apple. They seem to be the great exception when it comes to what makes a company cool.

It’s easy to mistake Apple’s coolness for the openness and conversation that’s happening elsewhere, but it’s really because of good design, and almost dictatorial control - kind of the opposite of openness.

As a recent article in Fortune pointed out, Apple would be in big trouble if Steve Jobs wasn’t there. (Can’t find it online, but it was the cover story towards the end of March. Perhaps it was print-only?)

I disagree with you about Seth Godin, because I heard Mitch Joel interview him recently on Six Pixels of Separation, where he explained why he doesn’t do comments …

It’s because having comments on his site would cause him to self-censor, and eventually shut up altogether. He was pretty open and honest about it. I can cut him that slack because he’s an individual, without a large staff doing his marketing for him. Yes, he’s also a formidable brand and influencer, but hey, he’s still human.

Freight Train

There are so many things I should blog about. Our recent social media one-day workshop, for instance, or our trip to Taupo, Napier and Rotorua (here are some photos, anyway).

But what I'm going to blog about today is a freight train I saw. I'm smacking my head (metaphorically) that I forgot to take a photo.

Commuter trains are kind of cute. They have much more character than buses, and there's something ... comforting about them.

Freight trains are something different. They are wild horses. They are ravenous beasts. They stop for no one, and their roar is shrill and piercing. They carry a kind of pain and urgency, as they break through the bells that signal their arrival and hurry on, their empty ribs speeding past, wordlessly threatening anyone who dare cross their path.

At least, that's what I thought as the freight train went by this morning.

And the winner is...

Marie and I went to the Hitwise Online Performance Awards last night, and I gave a 5 minute speech (here's what I planned to say).

It was good to see the winners, find out some interesting statistics about online, and meet others in the industry.

But it could've been a lot better, without increasing the budget at all.

Admittedly, Hitwise hit their target, which was speed. They successfully announced 165 winners over an hour and a half.

But what about the suspense?

Each category was announced, and then the winners were shown on screen, while the Hitwise staff read out each name.

It was like watching paint dry.

And we got pretty sick of hearing ".co.nz" ... but I guess that's an occupational hazard when dealing with New Zealand websites.

Then there was - almost like an afterthought - the explanation of what it meant to win a Hitwise award. And even then, it wasn't in much detail.

What could they do better? Storytelling.

Instead of reams of (very useful) statistics about the industry, how about some information about what it takes to be a Hitwise Online Performance Award winner?

How about - at the very least - keeping back the winner's details until they're announced?

How about analysis of trends, seeing who are the long-term champions and who's new to the top of the table?

How about some storytelling, the way they do sport here in New Zealand? And in Australia, where all the Hitwise staff came from.

And how about some decent grub!

Complaints aside - the good points were, good venue, good sponsor (ahem), and good networking.