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  1. #1
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    Default Trapster vs PhantomAlert

    My friend has a year subscription of PA and I have it on my GPS for a few months now. It's pretty accurate and it's speed trap locations are almost identical to trapster.

    Have anyone used both? Input please

    Trapster - Speed Trap Sharing System

    PhantomAlert.com: No More Speeding Tickets

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Trapster vs PhantomAlert

    Charging people a subscription fee is a recipe for epic fail. Few people are going to pay for this kind of information, especially since it's available elsewhere for free. Fewer users means no critical mass and probably coverage gaps.

    Trapster's business model (giving the end users free access to the trap data and selling the traffic congestion data) is much more viable.

    IMHO, of course.

  3. #3
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    Default Re: Trapster vs PhantomAlert

    Hehe, I completely agree. Too bad for my friend

    I'm going to switch to Trapster tomorrow and give it a shot.

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Trapster vs PhantomAlert

    I see stuff like that and have to wonder if the paid services are simply downloading Trapster's free POI, augmenting it with their (few) users reports and then selling it to people ignorant of Trapster.

  5. #5

    Default Re: Trapster vs PhantomAlert

    I think that all you have to do to answer that question is to look at whether the company in question selling data has any commercial licensing deals or not. For there to be a commercial licensing deal, the licensing company, you can be sure, has fully vetted the company to determine their method of collecting data. No company would get a licensing deal if they simply got data from Trapster. And no company could get a licensing deal if they couldn't demonstrate a data collection methodology because in reality they are really getting the data from Trapster and are trying to hide it.

    There are two kinds of data in this space. There is user-generated-content sites and there are non-user-generated-content-sites (in-house research).

    The UGC guys are in a race to be able to out-quantity each other. They advertise hundreds of thousands of points in the US. If you are talking about red light and speed cameras there are only about 6000-ish of them in the US. So what is a company advertising 200,000 locations filling their dataset with? They are filling it with this non-verifiable category called "speed traps" or "dangerous intersections."

    If you read the various reviews of these services, you are starting to see people make comments like there are SO many locations in these files that the alert goes off all the time which tends to start to defeat the purpose.

    The drawback to in-house developed data is that new locations, if not found from research, can be missed occasionally. The drawback of UGC sites is that bad locations get in if people don't know what they are reporting and once in, it takes a long time, if ever, for the location to be removed.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Chariot View Post
    I see stuff like that and have to wonder if the paid services are simply downloading Trapster's free POI, augmenting it with their (few) users reports and then selling it to people ignorant of Trapster.

  6. #6
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    Default Re: Trapster vs PhantomAlert

    All you have to do is look at the posting history of someone to see that they are essentially posting because they have a vested commercial interest. It must be factored that anything they say is biased towards they own financial interests and not necessarily your best interests.

    Jeff Carp,

    Your very first post on this site 3 years ago was advertising a company which sells POI data. Now, in 4 years time you have 4 posts. The first links to a company selling GPS data, the last is defending the methodology it uses.

    Now, here's the hard truth, Trapster is a damn good tool. It has saved my bacon several times already. It is free, and posses a huge threat to companies which sell the data. It will only get better as time passes, their filtering gets better and their crowd source techniques improve.

    Red light databases, well, frankly I don't run red lights and I don't speed in city traffic. I'm interested in speed traps, and that where UGC shines.

    In the interest of full disclosure, I believe you should post what your connection is to GPS POI US, LLC.
    Last edited by The Chariot; 11-14-2009 at 08:42 AM.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Trapster vs PhantomAlert

    That is BS. First of all, the "first post" you refer to was in 2006. That company, in 2006 post didn't sell ANYTHING in 2006. It was free at that time.

    This post has no reference to any particular company period.

    I know the company you refer to well. And I've never posted anything about them on this forum, with the exception of the 2006 post when the data was free.

    No question, for speed traps, UGC is the only way to do it.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Chariot View Post
    All you have to do is look at the posting history of someone to see that they are essentially posting because they have a vested commercial interest. It must be factored that anything they say is biased towards they own financial interests and not necessarily your best interests.

    Jeff Carp,

    Your very first post on this site 3 years ago was advertising a company which sells POI data. Now, in 4 years time you have 4 posts. The first links to a company selling GPS data, the last is defending the methodology it uses.

    Now, here's the hard truth, Trapster is a damn good tool. It has saved my bacon several times already. It is free, and posses a huge threat to companies which sell the data. It will only get better as time passes, their filtering gets better and their crowd source techniques improve.

    Red light databases, well, frankly I don't run red lights and I don't speed in city traffic. I'm interested in speed traps, and that where UGC shines.

    In the interest of full disclosure, I believe you should post what your connection is to GPS POI US, LLC.

  8. #8
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    Default Re: Trapster vs PhantomAlert

    Do you have a connection to any company which sells, licenses, gives away, or otherwise distributes POI data?

    If there is none, then I'll admit I misdirected part of my comments and publicly apologize.
    Last edited by The Chariot; 11-14-2009 at 09:12 AM.

  9. #9
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    Default Re: Trapster vs PhantomAlert

    Well, it turns out its not BS. You've hidden the GPS POI US domain registration using a proxy service, left no name or company address information anywhere on your site, etc. But that doesn't mean you can clean up data on sites out of your control:

    --------------------------------------------------------
    GPS POI US announces availability of geocoded database of US red light traffic camera locations - Free-Press-Release.com

    GPS POI US founder Jeff Carpenter says, "The inclusion of proximity alert technology in GPS hardware provided us a unique opportunity to develop a database of photo-enforced intersections, so that drivers can be automatically alerted as they approach one of these intersections no matter where they are in the United States."

    --------------------------------------------------------
    Bed and Breakfast Inns Press Releases from BedandBreakast.com


    "We are very excited about this partnership," said Jeff Carpenter, President, GPS POI US, USA.

    --------------------------------------------------------

    To wrap it up:

    1. Your first post linked to that site.
    2. Your fourth post was in response to a thread about a company which licenses data from the company in post 1. You defended the methodology of the company referenced.
    3. Your user name: jeffcarp. The company president name: Jeff Carpenter

    So it is clear you do have a financial interest in supporting the site in the post which started this thread and the methodology of the underlying POIs they license from you.

    There are representatives here from several companies of interest to this community, such as the Veil products, jammers, RDs and Trapster. They are upfront about their affiliation which I find to be an ethical way of promotion on a forum.
    Last edited by The Chariot; 11-14-2009 at 10:19 AM.

  10. #10
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    Default Re: Trapster vs PhantomAlert

    BWAAAHAHAHAHA, another shill gets outed.

    Nice work, Chariot!


 

 

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