I’ve been pretty lukewarm about texting. Much easier to send an receive voice messages, I thought. That was before my car – driven by child #3 on a college campus – got towed to make way for the street cleaner.
“What?” I said when she delivered the news. “How could you have possibly known it was street-cleaning day?”
She looked sheepish. “Third Tuesday,” she replied. “The sign said.”
It is too painful to disclose the towing cost, though it was hers, not mine, to pay. Suffice it to say she could have bought several weeks’ worth of groceries.
The silver lining is that the experience introduced us to an amazing free service called Antitow, aka online as www.antitow.com. This now month-old service sends free text message alerts when the street sweepers are coming into any one of seven campus neighborhoods.
What a concept! Just wish they’d expand their services to the off-campus world. In case you’re listening, Antitow, how about texting me with Garbage Day alerts? Rumpke reminders? Nudges to get an oil change? I’m all over this idea. Anyone else?
One Response
Pat,
Thanks for covering this – we’re doing a minimal job of promoting the site, so if anything, I’m surprised you came across it.
I like the garbage/recycling day reminders idea. We’re also thinking of integrating parking meter alerts into AntiTow (you text us the amount of time in the meter, we text you back when you’re running low). You can check out oilchg.com, a former client, for oil change reminders. Not sure whether they’re still doing it, though.
We’re looking to expand the reminder service to other areas once it becomes self-sustaining.
I don’t want to shill for specific concepts, but you can visit http://holmesmobile.com/projects for a few of our other text alerts projects.
Thanks,
Yury Tsukerman
Yury {at} holmesmobile.com