Last week I went to the Massachusetts-based Web Innovators Group conference. One of the companies presenting was GoLoco, a Car-Sharing service that connects you with friends and strangers in an attempt to save both the environment and your money. GoLoco was founded by Robin Chase, co-founder of ZipCar, and it is based out of Cambridge, MA.
I am pretty skeptical of GoLoco's business plan itself. They have successfully established a presence on Facebook with a Facebook App but their plan for monetizing the service is weak because it is limited to a niche of people that can't build up the courage to ask people for money.
Their monetization plan is to charge a 10% transaction fee when users pay each other through their Facebook Application via PayPal account. The rationale is that friends typically don't ask friends to chip in $2.46 for a ride to the NH State Liquor store, and when they do ask, the normal response is "yeah, I'll get you back later" because it's such a small, inconsequential amount of money.
The potential situation arising from friends using the GoLoco service to pay each other is pretty awkward:
Driver: Hey dude, mind tossing me some gas money for the ride to Walmart?
Friend 1: Sure no prob man, is it cool if I get you back later?
Driver: Errr, that's not gonna work. I'd like you to sign into GoLoco and pay me through paypal real quick if you could.
Friend 1: Sure, no problem. Dick...
This situation would be even better if there were even more people involved. Yes there are people that are early adopters out there and it might seem cool to pay each other online, but who in their right mind would do so if it meant that some random company, GoLoco, got 10% of money rightfully owed to the driver.
The cool thing about the service is that it calculates how much money the trip will cost for gas and tolls and therefore it provides you with a concrete amount of money to ask for. I like the service but I am not convinced by their plan to make money off of it. For more info on GoLoco, check out this New York Times article.
GoLoco is not alone in the market for Car Sharing via the Internet. Ride Amigos is a similar service and it currently operates in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. This company does not to seem to be aiming to make a profit on the service but instead is more interested in making a positive impact on the environment, or at least that's their marketing spin. Unlike GoLoco, this service doesn't provide a mean to exchange money and it does not have a Facebook widget. But it is noteworthy all the same. For more info, check out this TreeHugger post.
As for you Europeans out there, I came across the German website Mitfahrzentrale which translates into "agency for arranged lifts" (thanks Babelfish). When I used this website last year it only had a German version and I was still able to navigate it which just goes to show how easy and straight forward the service is. Thankfully though the site now allows you to translate it to English . It appears this site is used mainly within Germany still. I like the social networking functionality of the site and it's great how the homepage shows which cities are most actively using the service.
So go sign up for GoLoco, add the Facebook widget to you profile, and go on n' get your carpool on.
