Carvoyant Connected Car Cast 6: How Edmunds.com embraced APIs

Because it’s your car, therefore it’s your data. Sometimes, people get a little silly and try to say it’s not. “Your API” is Carvoyant’s core product. We don’t own your car and think it’s a little silly to think we can “own” your data or the choices you make with it. Others don’t always feel that way.  

Since companies change as they grow, we decided to bake that assumed truth of “Your car, your data” right into our product, our strategy and our brand from the very beginning. Carvoyant offered API access to our Carvoyant enabled drivers months before we engaged developers or connecting partners with APIs. The ultimate test of being “open” and “trustworthy” is “Can I take the data with me?” If you can, then we’ll behave accordingly, everyday, to be good stewards for our drivers and responsibly help you engage with developers who want to build on “Your API.”

The themes of “Your Car, Your Data” are not just marketing spin for Carvoyant, but central to our product and the way we help larger partners engage with drivers and developers. Treating it as anything but “your data” by definition limits how you use it to connect your car, and the places it takes you, to the rest of your life.

As our physical things get more connected, more of the digital models get applied to them. Some good, some bad and some just silly. APIs for our stuff, generally good. Collecting information without disclosure, permission and ongoing transparency, bad. Assuming that just because you built a physical thing you can retain “ownership” of any aspect of that after a purchase, just by adding a “click-wrap” agreement, uhh, that’s a little silly.

After a long time of hard work behind the scenes, Carvoyant’s platform can now cut months off the integration and deployment for our partners. That means you’ll see more public information over the coming weeks about different ways for Carvoyant Enabled Drivers to engage with apps, integrations and services from our partners. With opportunities for your data to be integrated, it felt important to lead off this new growth period by reiterating that it’s your data, under your control.

Data isn’t good, bad or silly on it’s own. How we use it can be. Relationships and agreements our drivers have with connecting partners before the data arrives in our stewardship is between you, the driver, and your connecting partners. How we protect and enable your use of your data once you’ve entrusted it to Carvoyant is entirely on us. That’s why “Your Car, Your Data, Your API®” is like our version of “Don’t Be Evil”. Except we baked it right in, at the beginning, to our thinking, our brand and the product. If we decide to be like Dr. Evil and sell out for “One Million Dollars!”, use your api to take your data with you. It’s under your control, like your car. Like it should be.

Openwash - v. wrapping efforts in an “open source” cloak for legitimacy or as a cover for other intentions.  

Some connected car discussions are great and some just make me feel like taking a shower. Don’t promote “open" with one hand and grab with the other.

Openwashing? How can you argue with open? Right up front, we’re fans of open source, open frameworks and open access. Data wants to be free, so let it be, responsibly. Equally, there are great cases where a tight, closed design can be elegant, efficient and very sustainable over time. 

Repeatedly, we see connected car proponents espousing the virtues of their implementations because they’re built with open source components or "open” because some third party developers agree to comply with onerous approval terms. It almost becomes humorous hearing restrictions justified for “security” reasons.

Over the last week in San Francisco we spent a lot of time talking connected cars with investors, developers and automakers. I’m truly impressed with how far the connected car space has come in the last eighteen months, and with some automakers in particular. Others, not so impressive. For the moment, I won’t hang these folks with their own words because I’m an optimist and hope some of these groups come around. I will give kudos to Volvo for being forthright and rational about drivers owning their vehicle’s data. 

Ultimately, the proof of how “open” a system or player is comes down to two things: 

1. Can you get the data?
2. Can anybody who plays nice, play?

Closed or open systems both need data plumbing, so my Christmas break wish isn’t about Carvoyant but pushing the connected car space forward. As we move into 2014 and the inevitable rush of CES shiny toys and sketchy promises, let’s resolve not to openwash connected car implementations or cloak market grabs with specious arguments about security. Consumers and communities are getting smarter and more vocal. With social media and the API economy, consumers will route around restrictive solutions and make lots of noise about it.

From Miami Herald - VCs investing more in Florida, http://hrld.us/1kYheFB

From Florida TaxWatch via Florida Trend -  Growing Florida’s Startup Companies, http://bit.ly/1kYelVt

“According to a 2012 MoneyTree report, California, Massachusetts, and New York attract 70 percent of all investment financing while Florida attracts less than 1 percent." 

We spent yesterday morning at a tri-athlon, rooting for a friend. Between chasing kids and wondering when Dave was coming, I kept hearing other friends crumble about Monday. Huhh?? 

Not that long ago I could identify with folks who live for Friday and dread Mondays, but these days. Don’t get me wrong. I love weekends and time with family & friends. An enforced break is definitely healthy but I cherish the passion to get back to work full throttle on Monday morning. Thank you, #startuplife.

Let’s hope the SEC doesn’t smother startups with too much “help.”

Actually, she did. Several hours ago portions of the JOBS Act went into effect making it legal to publicly state the open secret that startups are seeking investors. While I was on the phone running down details on the how/why of making our investment status public (more complicated than interpreting FB relationships), my daughter hit the button that let angellist switch our status.  

Done. Huh? A three year old? One button? OK, I was convinced. Convinced because it’s frighteningly easy to go from privately pitching investors to move into general solicitation, which the non-football SEC frowns really, really did not like.

With all the one button sharing experiences built into everything, and my kids attraction to all things electronic, it’s a wonder that didn’t happen sooner. 

@angellist made it easy to officially tell the public that our startup is raising capital. That’s cool. But social media also makes it too easy to “unofficially” move into general solicitation. That’s not cool. The SEC has proposed some really onerous, even disastrous, rules around “officially” becoming public. That’s not cool. angellist is working to adjust the really awful ones and make the whole overhead of startup funding lower. That’s cool since all startups hover one stray cut&paste to hootsuite away from a “bad” form of general solicitation. Yes, we’re public about investing now, but mostly because it’s prudent.

Carvoyant’s heavy on the pros, light on the cons, and we’re hiring!

It’s yours. Your car, your data, your control. Period. Depending on who you are this might sound obvious, or crazy, but it’s how we roll. Your car, your data, your API 

Most “connected cars” today are really only connected to one silo and come with a fair amount of fine print defining who “owns” what. That version of “connected” is more like tin cans with string. Something may be transmitted but you’re really only playing at being connected. That may be enough for some specific use cases but “connected” silos completely miss the potential of connected cars, or the extra value that comes from any network.

For a moment set aside the fact that your car is your property and your behavior is, well, yours. Trying to “own” the data simplifies the internal business discussions for automakers, telcos, insurance companies, and others, but “ownership” implies value and property. If it’s an asset, then that large company will try to make money in a “big data” fashion. In the best circumstances, that misses the “small data” needs in our everyday lives. In the worst circumstances, that “ownership” can dramatically trample individual privacy.

At Carvoyant, we insist that once a driver is Carvoyant Enabled, any data flowing in is theirs and under their control. We are not going to argue with our large partners about “ownership” of data flowing through various channels and we do our best to respect the various terms of service (ie: if an insurance company helped you connect, we’ll try to keep other insurance information out of the default stream). Ultimately, drivers will make choices. Making them the end point for their own data means they can engage as they choose without routing around systems that claim to “own” them.

 “Your Car, Your Data, Your Control ™” is more than just a tagline or a statement of the obvious. We also think it’s the best economic model for large partners to balance helping drivers get connected and get the most value from being connected.