Last year I attended an Adobe User Group meeting at which Rick Williams from AKQA gave a presentation about their project eco:Drive for Fiat. This application helps a Fiat driver to improve his or her driving efficiency. It analyses the driving style and recommends the driver how to reduce CO2 emmisions and save money at the same time.
Apart from owning a Fiat with integrated Blue&Me system, really all you have to do is to download the app on any kind of USB stick and then plug it into the car port. During your ride it will automatically store your driving data. Back home, you can upload the saved information to your online Fiat account and start looking at the statistics. eco:Drive communicates your driving technique in a so-called Eco Index. Online tutorials help you improve your Eco Index score along the way. Furthermore, you can monitor stuff like your total number of miles, the money you’ve been saving and set yourself some challenges as well. An interesting add-on is Ecoville, a community of all eco:Drive users where you can share your experiences and do many other things.
Fiat eco:Drive is a nice example of a Class 2 Meta Product, and as Rick put it during his presentation: “With services like eco:Drive, we’re making the web just a little bit more meaningful”. We think so too.
Meta Products – Building The Internet of Things
