The other day when I thought about the super high car prices and petrol costs, I remembered a startup I read on Techcrunch a while back. It’s one of those startups that when you see it, you go why didn’t I think of that. The startup displayed video advertisements on ride-sharing cars. This was always at the back of my todo list and I wanted to revisit that idea now that it is more attractive for drivers to sign-up.

I never knew how the startup did it, but I experimented with a few different hardwares and made a very early prototype. I was so excited I shouted when I saw the video playing on my car.

It took me a while to make it work with the car’s battery. It worked great and attracted the attention of everyone by the road.

I thought of two interesting use cases for this idea:

1. Ride sharing cars can display their carplate number and their passengers’ names on the window when they arrive at pick-up locations. This is safer for passengers because they do not need to step in front of the car to check their ride.

2. Video advertisements can be played synchronously on cars at a road intersection for a brand campaign. For example, all cars in front of the Nike store can play Nike’s latest advertisement.

This idea won’t be interesting if not for the challenges - the hardware, data costs and regulatory restrictions. I’m still thinking of new solutions but I’m excited of the possibilities for this one.

– 2022-08-24