Summary: Crowdsourcing is one important component of Clever Commute. However, when you use our premium service, you get the benefit of other datafeeds / sources. [Premium service = The Inside Track. See all the features. Sign up here. More info]
More: In Internet culture, there is a rule of thumb pertaining to participation in an internet community. It states that only 1% of the users of a social service (e.g., the free Clever Commute service) actively create new content. Yes – the other 99% of the participants only lurk. Statistically speaking, that’s YOU!
Of course, this matters if you depend on other people to do the sharing when there are issues with the commute…but none of your fellow commuters are sharing. Let’s cut to the chase and tell you why this all matters:
- DeCamp bus lines (yes, the bus company) broadcasts bus-related info via their official Twitter account
(Alas, Clever Commute knows that even fewer than 1% of our users are Twitter users…so this is not really a help) - The Port Authority of NY/NJ also electronically publishes timely updates regarding traffic and transit
(although it has all the shortcomings of a non-integrated e-mail based system)
Oh, yes…we did! Just in time for Summer traffic: the two sources above are now integrated into The Inside Track! Now, our premium users can:
- Opt-in/Opt-out of either of these new sources (just as they can for any sender)
- Receive messages via fast e-mail or true text messaging
- Set delivery preferences such as time-of-day/day-of-week
- Use our snooze feature to pause alerts for minutes…hours…or until tomorrow!
- Turn off all messages when you travel/are on business (but we know you like to see those when they don’t impact you: )
The timing could not be better. Let’s look at tonight, for example. The bus commute from Port Authority was indeed a bad one…but the sharers where nowhere to be found. That’s OK…automation saved the day!
At 5:42 PM: our integration with Port Authority provided the content for this automated e-mail message to our Inside Track commuters:
At 5:56 PM: our DeCamp/Twitter integration sent this e-mail message to our Inside Track commuters
It matters because there were no other crowdsourced messages this afternoon. If we did not have this technology in place, you would have no way to know about the problems tonight.