Car Parking through Web and Mobile

Parking through Web and Mobile

You’re in a rush, you need to find a parking spot – and there’s nothing available! Well, how about finding a parking spot on your mobile phone; or maybe even reserving a spot from home via your browser? This kind of Web-based car parking solution is in its infancy, but we think this solution is going to change the way people park their cars – especially when in a rush!

As of now leaders in the parking space are the UK based Findacarpark.com, parkatmyhouse.com, peasy.com, the highly touted spotscout.com, and the Chicago-based ParkWhiz.com (although ParkWhiz has yet to fully launch their service).

These parking services aim to take a small percentage of the parking marketplace and/or provide targeted advertising through the mobile phone and web browser. Also I think that layering in sponsored events and activities with searches, could be very powerful – if they can better target me by my previous search history. In addition, I expect these online parking services to be mashed in to e-vite services and event 2.0 sites, as an added-value tool – like we commonly see with Google Maps. For example I’d love to get a classified listing on Craigslist, and click a link to see a Google Map and nearby parking in that area.