If there’s one thing we keep hearing around the world these days it’s that gas prices are going up.  Just the other day I heard about places in the US that were hitting $6/gallon.  And today in my home town prices jumped by 8¢/L. So, I thought it was about time I reviewed this handy little app.

GasBuddy

Now, I’ll admit it’s not something I’m using a lot, as we all tend to be creatures of habit and use that place on the corner near our house because it’s convenient, or that other location because we get points… however, with the recent number of price jumps out there it’s becoming a rising cost to not shop around.

So, how’s this thing work?  Crowd-sourcing.  There are folks all around that are logging in and spotting a gas price and it gets entered into the system.  So it only really is as reliable as those that are on the system and are near you, but it’s pretty reliable from what I’ve found.

If you sign up for GasBuddy and help spot prices you get to earn points, and then randomly each week they draw for $250 in gas.  I don’t know how well that translates into Canada (edit, checked the terms… it’s US only), but it can’t hurt to be logged in and help spot for them, which will help keep your area current for the rest of the users on the system.

The interface is just as you would imagine.  You can have a list of all the nearest pumps and their prices, or you can list by price.  Or, best of all, you get that option to view on the map, and see how your drive will look… which of the gas stations would you pass offers the cheapest.

The website itself offers some great information and a cool “gas heat map” of the country, which is kinda insightful.

Here’s some of the screenshots of my usage, and well, if you want to be creepy, you can figure out where I wrote this:

So, definitely

Market Link:  https://market.android.com/details?id=gbis.gbandroid