Umibot is always one for attention-grabbing headlines…

From the USA Today, BP, the UK petroleum king, recently announced an initiative to outfit its 9,000 stations with WiFi. On the surface, maybe an eye-roller, but after reflecting for a few minutes, this gives rise to potentially interesting opportunities. Not knowing the distribution of BP stations (urban, rural, etc…) makes it difficult to make a blanket statement, but the advertising opportunities are interesting. The (irrelevant) money quote from the article:

[BP spokesman] Strickland thinks Wi-Fi can do the same thing for BP [sic]. “We want people to feel comfortable sitting in our BP stations just like they do in Barnes & Noble and Starbucks,” he says.

We’re all a bit dubious about feeling as comfortable leaning up against a gas pump as sitting in a cozy Starbucks with a Frappuccino, but the point is well-taken.

Kidding aside, could it be that BP acts as a local advertising aggregator? With the pending exposion of shipped WiFi chipsets, non GPS-enabled devices might have a better chance of being served relevant advertising. However, the massive elephant in the room is advertiser acquisition cost. While uber-fast connections will be enjoyed by those who can afford them, Umibot knows that with the rise of WiMax/Ultra Wideband/3/4G/Clearwire and others, alternatives to high-speed connectivity exist, but adoption is low–outside of the smartphone/tech warrior set, most of us relay on 2.5G or WiFi.

For San Francisco in 1953, it was about 9 lbs. Recent acquisition to the UMI rare book collection includes this gem. Over 2200 pages of goodness that is chock full of advertising–on the spine, front cover, back cover, margins, every which way…makes today’s YP products pale in comparison.