Pump your Gas and Google

Ever find yourself at a gas station looking for directions? When I was younger, my family pulled into a gas station in the Bronx, New York looking for directions out of the Bronx. My dad asked the station clerk for directions, and she replied, “fill up your tank and I can help you.” My dad filled up the tank and went back for the instructions, to which the woman replied “sorry, no hablo English.”

Soon, you won’t have to rely on the gas station service clerks for directions. According to a CNN article and the Gilbarco Veeder-Root website, Google has formed a partnership with gas station pump maker Gilbarco Veeder-Root, which just introduced their Applause Media System. Gilbarco’s pumps will now include an Internet connection displaying Google’s mapping service on a small screen.

At first, pumpers will be asked to find their location by scrolling through many popular categories, including hotels, restaurants and hospitals selected by the gas station’s owner. Once a destination is selected, the pump will print out directions.

This is another way Google is becoming involved in the search business. Some of the other non-traditional search engine searching you can do include:

Dialing 1-800-GOOG-411 for free phone number services.
Texting “GOOGL” along with a business and city, and Google will send you the address and phone number.
Searching using a Blackberry or other handheld device – Google.mobi

Someone asked me what I thought the % of people who would use the Google pump maps vs. in-car GPS systems. That got me thinking, why doesn’t Google develop an inexpensive Google Maps branded GPS system? Better yet, why not develop an in-car computer system to allow motorists to connect to the Internet using Google’s technologies?