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Advertisements are everywhere. They’re surrounding this article, they’re on Twitter, they fill mailboxes, they’re strategically placed above urinals, they’re on NBA jerseys, they’re tucked into playlists—and soon they’ll be striped across the infotainment touchscreens in cars. Telenav, a company that specializes in navigation and connected-car services, has built a platform to support advertising in automotive infotainment systems, and it plans to work with automakers to get ads into internet-connected vehicles.
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California-based Telenav has experience in both automotive navigation and location-based mobile advertising sectors, with the cross point between the two being targeted promotions and advertising integrated into automotive maps.
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Here’s how it works: While a car is driving, the technology will detect businesses and services nearby, much as navigation systems already do with gas stations and restaurants. When the vehicle is stopped, an ad will pop up on the dashboard screen alerting the driver of a sale, a deal, or even a new product at a nearby store. The system also takes into account frequented routes and time of day. Because the ads disappear whenever the wheels start rolling, they will most likely be seen when first getting into or out of the car, but Telenav points out they could also run at stop signs or stoplights. The ads can be closed by using other infotainment features.
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Although one might assume that drivers’ acceptance of in-car advertising might mitigate or eliminate the fees charged for Wi-Fi, streaming music, or other services, Telenav is pitching the feature as a revenue stream for automakers. Drivers would not benefit—unless you consider the ads themselves as a driver benefit. Our guess is that most drivers would not. It would be a more interesting proposition if, in the style of Spotify, Pandora, and Hulu payment plans, drivers could agree to allow in-car ads or choose to pay a monthly fee to avoid them.
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At this point, this type of programming appears to be inevitable, and it will eventually get even more specific once smartphones, computers, smart homes, and smart vehicles are all connected in one cloud.
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