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Post by CampKohler (Sacramento CA) on May 14, 2018 11:36:29 GMT -5
Despite not wanting to get this forum's members embroiled in GB politics, it is hard to avoid when "the evil plan" (remember that?) further reveals itself. This blog is telling us that we (meaning GB members) are not long for this world, fuel-reporting-wise. The stated purpose of the Navads partnership is to allow fuel sellers to "control" their MSL data and prices. What is left for members to do? I suspect nothing more than output functions, because the stations will do all the input. In other words we will be relegated to being entirely eyeballs to be sold, I.e. clicks. “Retailers can now rest assured that they can control the facts of their business,” said Greg Fox, executive vice president of retail services at GasBuddy. Evidently depending on GB members for good data has left retailers with less than restful assurance, hence the need for Navads. Or are these supposed retailer's worries a bogeyman being sold to them as a reason to eliminate GB members from the process? Why now? Has there been a great outcry from retailers over the last decade that our reporting is fatally faulty? I've not heard that. If you have had the experience of seeing a station's data change, but being unable to update the MSL due to the station being in the Verified program, that IMHO is what this blog suggests for all aspects of reporting by the membership. Will the next step be to eliminate all reporting by the membership? What do you think the effect of that will be on the data, both MSL and prices? Or has the time for caring about that has come and gone? |
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Post by samjam2 on May 14, 2018 13:13:01 GMT -5
Oops, I just posted a thread about the same thing titled, "Who Needs Price Spotters?" Since Gas Buddy has announced that they are letting station owners publish prices and manage their location data, they only need the general public to use their app for viewing ads.... GasBuddy Partners with Navads GasBuddy Blog -- (May 14, 2018) — GasBuddy today announced a strategic partnership with industry-leading location data management company Navads, to offer the only dedicated listings management service designed specifically for fuel and convenience store brands via Business Pages, GasBuddy’s industry-leading B2B retail Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform. This partnership puts increased control of listings directly in the hands of fuel and convenience store retailers. Retailers now have the ability to publish gas prices and manage their location data (address, lat/long, hours, amenities) directly through the GasBuddy Business Pages dashboard, which will be published on the GasBuddy app, as well as syndicated across top publishers like Google, Bing, Apple, Waze and in-car navigations |
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Post by TheFlashman on May 15, 2018 8:19:34 GMT -5
Well, GasBuddy's weakness is that there are a bunch of people posting guessed prices from their couch, leading to inaccurate prices. I guess this will fix that as well as kick us out of any kind of participation.
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Post by TheFlashman on May 15, 2018 8:30:24 GMT -5
Camp: "Or has the time for caring about that has come and gone?" Yeah, I still participate, but know my days are numbered. So I am getting to where I don't care. It was fun for many years and thanks to you, we still have a way to stay in touch with the friends made along the way. If we could just get more of them over here!
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Post by BETA-Gasbuddy on May 15, 2018 9:53:49 GMT -5
I think you will see the app move from reporting prices to utility app where you look up prices, track vehicle data such as "My Trips", GasBuddy wallet, Fuel Log, and eventually maintenance logs, etc.
Some may find these useful, others not. And, all provide aggregation of data to sell.
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Post by msienkiewicz (Maryland) on May 15, 2018 13:04:12 GMT -5
I suppose they would have to get a 'critical mass' of gas station owners to sign on before pulling the plug on us spotters. Having gas prices for many/most stations regardless if they participate in the Dashboard is necessary for users to get use out of the app.
If eventually the app ends up only with gas station dealers stale prices (yeah, how'd that GB Direct work out in your area) it could lose popularity. One gas station where I report can't seem to get the prices right on the electronic sign now and again - would they input correct prices for GB?
Well, I was considering retiring from active posting anyway, when I hit my 10-years consecutive this fall or the 7-million mark...
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Post by sneakers (Metro Houston) on May 15, 2018 13:21:09 GMT -5
Well, GasBuddy's weakness is that there are a bunch of people posting guessed prices from their couch, leading to inaccurate prices.
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reb
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Post by reb on May 15, 2018 20:22:22 GMT -5
Not sure stations will want to post prices. If they are not competitive, why would they?
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Post by Kyle5414 on May 15, 2018 22:10:06 GMT -5
On more than one occasion I've seen prices change after passing a station. Even as I posted the price.
One time my husband and I were about 120 miles from home and there was an entry from someone in my area at this very out of the way station. There was no way they had been there. Don't understand how they could make an out of area entry.
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lind
Champion Member
Slaying system bugs
Posts: 2,629
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Post by lind on May 16, 2018 13:22:24 GMT -5
My master's Gasbuddy alltime rank has been increasing lately, despite not completing any challenges due to not having the equipment to complete them. After a long period of constant rank drop, despite frequent gas prices posts, a small up rank has occurred. My master got into the top 1000s at one point, up until the challenges started, and now has dropped deep into the 10000s ranking.
This seems to imply that Gasbuddy has either lost many challenge posters or perhaps there's a posting or challenge completion lull.
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reb
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Post by reb on May 19, 2018 12:10:08 GMT -5
On more than one occasion I've seen prices change after passing a station. Even as I posted the price. One time my husband and I were about 120 miles from home and there was an entry from someone in my area at this very out of the way station. There was no way they had been there. Don't understand how they could make an out of area entry. Yea, today I posted prices and a poster changed the price to an incorrect price. I took pictures, and have reported this to gb, but I don't believe they are that concerned about accurate prices. It's my belief they either post the prices themselves under bots or they encourage it to increase their reported prices. It's annoying but not worth reporting the abusers since it makes little difference. |
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Post by picturefreak on May 21, 2018 10:21:49 GMT -5
There's no way to prove who's right and going to check every single station to verify would cost way too much.
Just keep overwriting their wrong post, that's the best/only thing that can be done to ensure correctness. Those who post solely for points and not correctness will not overwrite your correct post.
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Post by DavisSta on May 28, 2018 4:34:18 GMT -5
Will the next step be to eliminate all reporting by the membership? I don't see that happening any time soon. Some stations are willing to report their prices themselves, but many are not, so there would be a lot of stations with no prices if GasBuddy eliminated member reporting completely. GasBuddy could resort to scraping prices from credit card transactions, as some other sites have done, but that won't get them cash prices and the delays that seem to be inherent in that process can result in stale prices. |
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reb
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Post by reb on Jun 5, 2018 16:51:00 GMT -5
There's no way to prove who's right and going to check every single station to verify would cost way too much. Just keep overwriting their wrong post, that's the best/only thing that can be done to ensure correctness. Those who post solely for points and not correctness will not overwrite your correct post. Actually, a picture of the price is pretty impelling. SInce I don't take out the metadata, it is very accurate, what the price was when the picture was taken. Do you do instagram picturefreak? |
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Post by Teslukbla on Jun 20, 2018 21:53:49 GMT -5
If the Gas Buddy plan is to minimize or eliminate the importance of the long time spotters, I will respond by relying on the online prices on the chain websites instead of the Gas Buddy site. Love's, Murphy USA, Road Ranger, Kwik Trip, and Speedway are just some of the chains in the states that I drive in that have websites that feature hourly online prices that I consider to be more up to date and accurate than what the Gas Buddy site has on display on a daily basis. I am sad to say that considering that I am a long time Gas Buddy participant.
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