Traffic: roadway versus internet

 This morning I headed off about 7:40AM to do a pickup of merchandise for the small business. I was headed northeast.  Over the past fourteen months I've slowly forgotten that everyone in the Twin Cities heads southwest about that same time.

The tall building in in center is the IDS Center.  Completed in the early 1970s it is certainly the icon on Twin Cities downtown business architecture.  Well placed on the Nicollet Mall, this image does not serve it well.  I worked about two blocks of the IDS Center and this was my morning commute for 27 years.

The MnDOT live traffic info confirmed congestion in the NW burbs.  Over the past few years there have been a couple of light rail lines opened which have very heavy ridership in spite of the pre-construction critics.  The Bakken oil reserves of North Dakota seem to have played into the low fuel prices and people seem to be responding by...well, driving more.  

Of course driving more, adding to the warming of the planet is all crazy.  Our local premier weather meteorologist made a good explanation of the odd weather patterns we've been experiencing over the past six or seven years (like wind blowing from the east in the summer).  The polar regions are warming at a faster rate than the more southern regions creating a vortex situation.  It no longer rains much after the 4th of July and the birch trees are all dying because it's a few degrees warmer.  It might be time to to change the hose from 'suck' to 'blow.'

Internet Traffic
It's easy to become distracted in this job/career/income pursuit.  I've gone down a good path by chasing the blog monetization route.  Everyone deserves to pick up a few bucks from ads, not just Facebook or Google.  They have enough money.  I have not jumped into the ad monetization opportunity for mobile devices but if I remember my facts five years ago 75% of the advertising on the internet was directed at notebook/desktop users and now 75% is directed to mobile users.  Mobile would include smartphones and tablets and we know that tablets are becoming de facto devices in many process control applications (e.g. agricultural gps).  

There an interesting application for my iPhone called Cheap Gas.  Users enter in gas prices as they drive about.  There's some advertising but the data might cause you to drive an extra few miles to save a few bucks.  As I've begun working remotely, pretty much out of a notebook slipcase I've chased internet traffic (good connectivity).  Most of the Caribou coffee locations have about 20 people plunked on their chairs consuming and consuming.  Burger King has decent bandwidth.  I've never seen anyone else with a notebook at Burger King.  It is a pretty low class workspace.  

Seth Godin publishes a lot of books on marketing and business issues like strategic planning.  He gives them away on the internet before beginning to charge.  That's a similar approach that bloggers are using.  Write or produce something of value.  Let 50,000 people have it free and they will all suggest it to their friends when you start charging $19.95.

At times I've created lists of "good ideas" but I cannot remember ever executing on and "good idea" that I put on a list.  My idea of the morning is a "Cheap Gas" application for public or quasi-public internet access.  More than once I've sat in my car outside a Target and used their "guest" WIFI for a quick internet check.   Motel/Hotel parking lots aren't bad either but the cheaper the facility the less security is the access. If I was really good this could be combined with Google Maps and you could get driving directions to the nearest "good" or "adequate" free WIFI.  Of course as data plans continue to get cheaper we all sort of travel with WIFI in our pocket. I'd just like to save on that cost.

On the way back into the traffic I stopped at a Starbucks.  Some generous person had handed the attendant a lot of money and apparently everyone was getting free coffee.  I'd left my hearing aids at home so it took a few explanations for this all to register.  Being a bit disheveled, having thinning grey hair and not being hair probably put me in the near-homeless-appearing category.  Along with the Good Free Internet application I could do some sort of Good Free Coffee application.  I'm not going to put that on the list.

In the midst of this I did work the social media aspect for the small business with some tweets about upcoming sales and events and checked in on the Facebook advertisement progress and started to work on the next ad.  FB is interesting because you can target by geography and demographics.  Google ads certainly have the geography component.  I'll have to check and see if I've ever put my age in my Google application profiles.