

Show HN: Our new ridesharing site, BurningManRides.com. Feedback? - jasonshen
http://burningmanrides.com

======
kalvin
Hey HN, I'm a long-time reader and this is my first Show HN (exciting!) It's a
collaboration between me, jasonshen (of rejection therapy / cold showers /
winning isn't normal), and randy.

We'd love feedback. Do you belong to any of these categories?

1) Going to Burning Man? (it's a weeklong festival in the Nevada desert, 50K
attendees)-- how can we make this better for you?

2) Potential user of a more general ridesharing site? (we're talking long
occasional drives, not daily commutes/carpooling)-- how can we improve on this
so you'd use it?

3) Have opinions on ridesharing? -- tell us.

If you note which group(s) above you belong to in your comment that'd be great
:)

Thanks so much for the help!

~~~
egiva
I definitely like grouping rides by the date that the driver is starting
his/her trip - maybe make that a tad more obvious? A small aside like a jQuery
calendar or simple title like "Find a Ride by Date..." would get that message
across.

Random idea: Instead of some calendar or other search/organization method, you
might look at a map with jQuery slider. The idea would be to hook people up
with drivers that might drive past their location (but not start there), and
otherwise help discovery.

You might jerry-rig a single map with all "active" routes laid on it, and a
jQuery slider that changes the date. It would be a cool way to see all the
rides/routes available on any given day. Multiple colored routes on a single
map should be possible - see here: [https://groups.google.com/group/google-
maps-api/browse_threa...](https://groups.google.com/group/google-maps-
api/browse_thread/thread/d541a389c8c7d463?pli=1)

~~~
jannes
Oh god, please don't do this. Said "jQuery sliders" and "jQuery calendars" are
awful to use on touch-based devices. The click targets usually aren't big
enough.

And I wouldn't be surprised if the slider doesn't work at all on touch-based
devices, because their browsers usually don't generate onmousedown or
onmousemove events. (There are specific touch events for this, but most
programmers tend to ignore them.)

------
beatpanda
I'm in group 2. I usually use Craigslist. Here are my main gripes:

-No standardization of locations, so no way for the system to show you who's going where at what time automatically.

-People shouting past each other _a lot_ , like somebody offered a ride to a place three days ago and then a ton of people pile on the day of the ride looking to go to that place

-Reputation scoring, i.e. how often do they flake, etc.

I would use the shit out of a general-purpose rideshare site if you build it.
Also, I am a front-end engineer mainly interested in helping people share
stuff. So there's that.

Good work!

------
blackboxxx
I'm enthusiastically behind the ridesharing idea. It's ecologically
intelligent, saves people money and the hassles of vehicle ownership, and with
looming fuel price spikes/peak oil/economic uncertainty, I see it as a
futureproof business.

Looks like you've also got a solid team in place too (the importance of this
cannot be overstated).

Btw, I'm in the "potential user" camp, and will use your service when I've got
a chance.

In short, this is a startup I can feel good about. Good luck!

~~~
listic
Can you share some good ridesharing services?

~~~
blackboxxx
I don't know of many, sorry. I think the time is ripe for a startup to own
this market though.

------
jmtame
Tie in Airbnb recommendations based on how long you're staying, and this is
possibly the cheapest (and most exciting) way to travel around.

------
gourneau
Please add a section for planes :)

Then pimp it on <https://lists.burningman.com/mailman/listinfo/aviators-list>

Yee Haw!

~~~
BurngMnContrDnc
You could do our contradance theme camp a great favor by implementing this
ASAP. We had a key musician drop out and the person who is by far the best
replacement has a conflict that can only be solved by a flight at just the
right time (ie this might provide the miracle we need).

------
tadruj
Make a deal with HipMunk to show your long-haul ride-shares (if they exist) as
a last hit on their flight search :)

------
stevoski
There's a similar site in Germany that has more or less replaced hitchhiking.
Very popular. Someone is going from, for example from Hamburg to Berlin, and
says how many places are free, and how much money you have to chip in to cover
expenses.

<http://www.mitfahrgelegenheit.de/> is the URL.

It's worth taking a look so you don't have to reinvent everything.

~~~
toumhi
Same in France, there's a very popular site with several millions of members:
<http://www.covoiturage.fr>

I used the service myself and they have plenty of good ideas, feedback,
voting, preferences, good ride search etc.

I myself wanted to start a ridesharing site some time ago but it seems like a
tough proposition as it's very much a chicken/egg problem. Good luck with this
new site though, we need more people ridesharing in the world :-)

------
dfischer
I love the design you got going on. I don't say this often. Nice work.

~~~
jasonshen
Thanks! That's all randy. =)

------
sown
I'm certain that "Burning Man" is copyrighted. You might have to tangle with
that.

<http://www.burningman.com/press/pressRandR.html#bmanRR>

~~~
dreamdu5t
You misunderstand copyright law. I can use Burning Man as much as I want as
long as I don't use the name to make money.

~~~
icebraining
He misunderstands copyright law, because copyright doesn't cover names.

Burning Man may be a trademark, though.

------
frankdenbow
Cool idea. Its similar to a site <http://RideHack.com> that launched recently

------
OstiaAntica
Nice job! I'm interested in the tech details-- what is the site built with?
How long did it take? Thanks!

~~~
randy
Thanks!

The site was built with Ruby 1.9.2 + Rails 3.1 (+ SASS and Coffeescript),
jQuery (+ UI), and PostgreSQL on top of Heroku (Cedar Stack + Unicorn +
Memcached) using Facebook Connect and the Google Maps API. We've just been
hacking on it for a little while now but the more pertinent point is that we
still have plenty of hacking to do :)

------
trusko
I find it cool and potentially very useful. Good luck guys.

------
danoc
How have you been promoting the site? Looks great!

------
jnburnham
what's to prevent users from getting stabbed

~~~
jasonshen
We definitely want to make sure our users are safe. Check out our safety page
(which is linked at the footer) with tips on how to rideshare safely:
<http://burningmanrides.com/safety>

~~~
randy
We're also always looking for suggestions on how we can make the experience
safer and better for our users. Let us know what else we should do!

