With all this talk of GPS apps and whatnot, I want to bring something up that I’ve mentioned to Wayfinder, TomTom, and Smart2Go, and no one really seems too interested in it. So I’d like to ask my readers. Here’s what I see:
I see GPS soon becoming mainstream. With more devices utilizing it, and more apps available for those devices, we’ll have more POI, more accuracy, more Location-Based Services, and more connectivity. (Personally I think the idea of a stand-alone GPS unit in a vehicle is ridiculous.) And these GPS’ talk to you, right? Most have numerous languages, and each language typically has 2 voice options, a male and a female. But that’s where it stops. I think you can see where this is headed….
Why doesn’t any company sell “Voice Paks?” TomTom is the only one that kind of does this, but there’s none of the voice paks I’m envisioning. I want to see several categories of voices available, and another level of interactivity.
The first category is obvious – celebrities. Who wouldn’t love to have Arnold Schwarzenegger directing them around town? What about Jim Carrey? John Wayne? There’s PLENTY of of voice talent out there, and I think it’d be awesome to have The Duke telling me to hang a right at the next stop sign. You could even lump cartoon characters and movie characters into this one, I think. TomTom has a few, like Darth Vader and Yoda, but I think there’s a much larger market to be had.
The next category should be accents. Why not have male and female accent paks. Personally, I’m obsessed with accents. I love listening to people with heavy foreign accents talk. British, French, Indian, Irish, it doesn’t matter. What if I could have a chick with a german accent direct my BMW around town? Even better, the Southern Belle accent. Oh, man. Sounds like the complete package to me.
The third category is a bit more difficult to define, and may be something that only I would be interested in. I’m not sure what to call it, so I’m going to say personality packs. This is very similar to an accent pak, but it’s more, not politically correct. Let’s see an Ebonics Pak, or how bout the Redneck Pak? “Ya dun missed yer turn, bubba.” or “Yo homie, you’s s’posed to turn right thur.” Or how bout the Inspirational Pak: “That was a great left turn, coming up you’ll go right.”
Does anyone else think this would be a great business opportunity? Personally, I think for $5 it’d be cheap enough to make it worthwhile. And not a subscription-timed thing, just $5 for the pak for as long as you have your GPS. The cool part is that there’d be new voice paks every now and again so you could switch out the “personality” of your GPS. Thoughts? Comments?
