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.