How Do You Like Your Anti-Parking Ticket Notification?

Aaron Sorkin, when you have a second, we have a pitch for you: it's a television show set in the fast-paced world of anti-parking ticket companies. Maybe consider basing it on Stop Parking Tickets Now, a new USC-based service, and the Ticket Angels out of Santa Monica? SPTN are the young bucks--they're students who started the company for their (fall semester!) entrepreneurship class. (The USC area has a well-documented street cleaning ticket problem.) For $20 a year, SPTN sends automated text messages to subscribers based on their street sweeping days. The service launched less than a month ago and co-founder Andy Hayes tells Curbed that so far there are about 25 subscribers, mostly from USC, but also in Santa Monica and Downtown. They're donating 10% of their proceeds to NFTE, an organization "that teaches entrepreneurial skills to disadvantaged Los Angeles high school students."

The Ticket Angels are a little more established, with perhaps more finessed methods, but they've got big dreams too. The Angels charge $60 a year and they actually patrol the streets (on a scooter), only notifying owners of cars that are at risk of ticketing. Co-founder Matthew Parker tells Curbed the Angels have "several hundred" subscribers all over Santa Monica. The company has recently taken on a third partner and there are top secret plans in the works for "massive expansion."

Of the new kids, he says "We think it's great, we're all about stopping parking tickets," but he doesn't seem convinced that text messages are the most effective way to go. He says the Angels "have no plans of charging for text messages or doing what [Stop Parking Tickets Now] do." (He also points out a text message/voicemail/email-based service out of Long Beach called Ticket Haters, which according to its website charges $4.99 a month.)

How 'bout it, Sorkin? We see massive potential for friendly rivalries, reckless idealism, and walking and talking (about parking tickets).
· Stop Parking Tickets Now [Official Site]
· Ticket Angels [Official Site]