Start-up Eyes Auctions of Wide-Open Spaces
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
SpotScout hopes to transform hunt for parking spaces
Despite the glacially cold real estate market (so much for global warming), a Massachusetts firm sees a bright future in land, and it's all about location, location, location. Instead of townhouses in Boston's Back Bay, however, SpotScout is looking to auction prime real estate of a different sort: parking spaces, reports the Boston Eagle-Tribune.
By leveraging the growing popularity of mobile web surfing, the Cambridge-based start-up hopes to create an online marketplace where drivers can not only reserve private spaces in garages and driveways, but also swap public parking spots in real time, with vacant spaces going to the highest bidder.
Like the jerk who's parked his Hummer over three spots, myriad technical, legal and practical hurdles could box out SpotScout.
"For starters, the firm must make online parking searches sufficiently quick and inexpensive to win over a critical mass of consumers willing to abandon the old-fashioned way of simply looking for a curbside spot or garage," the story notes. The firm also must overcome problems posed by drivers who don't vacate a space when expected while mollifying city officials concerned over citizens "trafficking information about public spots that are available first-come, first-serve and can't be reserved."
SpotScout plans to begin posting information next month about garage and other private parking spots available for reservation in Boston, New York and San Francisco, with eventual rollouts planned in other large cities. SpotScout doesn't expect to launch the auction system for on-street public spots until next year.
To affirm the descriptor Davin Nissanoff uses in his poignant book "FutureShop," parking space traders would seem to epitomize the "temporary ownership society."
Despite the glacially cold real estate market (so much for global warming), a Massachusetts firm sees a bright future in land, and it's all about location, location, location. Instead of townhouses in Boston's Back Bay, however, SpotScout is looking to auction prime real estate of a different sort: parking spaces, reports the Boston Eagle-Tribune.
By leveraging the growing popularity of mobile web surfing, the Cambridge-based start-up hopes to create an online marketplace where drivers can not only reserve private spaces in garages and driveways, but also swap public parking spots in real time, with vacant spaces going to the highest bidder.
Like the jerk who's parked his Hummer over three spots, myriad technical, legal and practical hurdles could box out SpotScout.
"For starters, the firm must make online parking searches sufficiently quick and inexpensive to win over a critical mass of consumers willing to abandon the old-fashioned way of simply looking for a curbside spot or garage," the story notes. The firm also must overcome problems posed by drivers who don't vacate a space when expected while mollifying city officials concerned over citizens "trafficking information about public spots that are available first-come, first-serve and can't be reserved."
SpotScout plans to begin posting information next month about garage and other private parking spots available for reservation in Boston, New York and San Francisco, with eventual rollouts planned in other large cities. SpotScout doesn't expect to launch the auction system for on-street public spots until next year.
To affirm the descriptor Davin Nissanoff uses in his poignant book "FutureShop," parking space traders would seem to epitomize the "temporary ownership society."
posted by Chris and Frank at 9:25 PM
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