Facebook for the Road? Call, E-Mail Other Drivers With New Social Network
AUSTIN, Texas, March 14, 2011 -- Have you ever wanted to call another driver to complain about cutting you off? Or to tell him that his brake lights aren't working? Or even to ask him out on a date?
Now you can.
Through a new start-up called Bump.com, drivers across the country can use their license plates to connect with each other via e-mails, text and voice messages, and even access discounts to local stores based on the locations where they're driving.
"It's kind of like a Groupon and a Foursquare, meets AAA and LoJack -- all of which you can't turn off," said Mitch Thrower, Bump.com's San Diego, Calif.-based founder and CEO.
The company is powered by a program that scans and automatically recognizes license plate numbers in pictures taken by security cameras on the road. It then matches up those numbers with e-mail accounts, mobile phones and location systems to let people communicate.
For two years, Bump.com has been in "stealth" mode, Thrower said, building up the technology behind the company and assigning e-mail addresses and voicemail boxes to license plates across the country.
At the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin today, the company officially launched, on an open invitation basis.
To join, you can register on the company's website for an invitation to "claim your plate." After receiving the invitation, users can go to Bump.com to verify car ownership and set up a profile.
But even if you don't want to be a part of a social network for the streets, Bump will capture images of your license plate and assign it an identity. Other drivers will be able to send messages to your car, but you only receive those text and voice messages if you sign up for the network and register yourself as the license plate owner.
"Your license plate is basically a public document, a public record, and it ties back to a communication need," Thrower said. "Everyone's thought, at some point, 'Hey, I'd like to talk to this person. I'd like to send this person a message.'"
