My Next Big Business Idea

So I was taking my urchins to school yesterday, and I was behind this pickup with a brake light out. He’ll never see it, of course, since he’s sitting in the truck with his foot on the brake when the failure occurs. I could have let him know by getting out at a stop light and tapping on his window, but that’s a good way to get an sudden leaden tracheotomy in these parts.

Then I thought to myself, you know, if only I could text to him based on his license plate. I’d send something to KC0WUT, and if he logged into it, he could get the message. He could also set his cell number to get the messages delivered as texts. It could be helpful for these sorts of “You don’t see it, but….” Kids–although kids don’t drive or cruise much these days–could use them while cruising to flirt. And, yes, there’d be a lot of griefers complaining about driving, but people would have to log in to get the messages, so it would definitely be opt-in in nature.

I told my beautiful wife about it over lunch, and we spitballed some requirements. She didn’t immediately tut-tut the crazy idea, so maybe it wasn’t so crazy after all.

And then Charles Hill, destroyer of dreams, posted a link to the story “‘Girls were desperate to track me (and my £170k Ferrari) down – so I invented an app to make it easier for them!’ Businessman, 58, launches service that finds dates using number plates“:

The app which allows admirers to contact any car owner in the country. All you do is sign up to the website or app and send a message or a ‘wave’ to any registration plate.

Kinda like what I imagined, but less focused on the getting-laid-because-I-have-a-Ferrari thing.

Come on, Charles, did you have to post it the same day I had the idea? Couldn’t you have waited a couple days?

Anyone want to hear again the story about how I thought up a database-driven Web content display mechanism that let users enter posts which were rendered in HTML in reverse chronological order in 1997? I have the ideas, but not the programming skill nor enough money to afford a Ferrari and a team of developers to implement them.