

Ridejoy for iPhone - kalvin
http://ridejoy.com/mobile

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ridejoy
Would love any comments/suggestions you have-- this was our first iPhone app
for those involved (mainly one designer and one engineer), so it was quite the
learning experience. We're expecting a lot of, um, good feedback :) Thanks!

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danso
Did you build it on something like Parse?

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ridejoy
Nope, we already had a full backend for our web service so introducing a new
dependency for only part of their value prop didn't seem worthwhile

(Though we love the people at Parse, and the product looks pretty great!)

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gozman
Ridejoy looks great, but Canadians out there should really take a look at
LiveRides (<http://liverides.com>)

Their app does what Ridejoy does and more - it even lets you securely
communicate and track where a driver is when he/she is on his/her way to pick
you up.

I'm really glad to see people in this space. I'm fed up of big oil and driving
my car alone. Driving should be a social experience with friendly people that
doesn't hurt the planet needlessly.

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ridejoy
Ridejoy has hundreds of active rides in Canada (especially around Vancouver,
but also Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Ottawa) and three Canadian cities are
in the Popular Destinations section of our iPhone app.

We also launched our iPhone app in Canada:
[http://mobilesyrup.com/2012/08/14/ridejoy-ride-sharing-
app-m...](http://mobilesyrup.com/2012/08/14/ridejoy-ride-sharing-app-moves-
into-canada-tries-to-make-carpooling-a-bit-friendlier/)

So definitely check out Ridejoy in Canada as well :)

(Good luck to gozman/LiveRides, more people trying rideshare helps everyone)

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timjahn
I tested it out for the Chicagoland area to see how much saturation they have
here, and did a search for a trip from the city to a NW suburb for tomorrow.

1 result came up, so I clicked, and it brought up a Craigslist page within an
iFrame. Is Ridejoy just scraping Craigslist? Genuinely curious.

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ridejoy
We do show matching rides from Craigslist as a service to our users. Using an
iframe means we don't need to scrape/copy the content to show it, but it still
looks good/works well. CL seems fine with it, we haven't had issues with them.
And we send lots of our traffic to them, not that they need it :)

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Samuel_Michon
_“Share rides with friendly people to (...) Every week, Ridejoy helps
thousands of friendly drivers and passengers share rides and save on gas.”_

That’s very nice, but nowhere in the FAQ is explained how Ridejoy guarantees
that only friendly people get a ride. Who’s to say I’m not picking up an axe
murderer?

<http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/hairyarm.asp>

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jasonshen
Great question and thanks for linking to the snopes article de-bunking this
myth.

Most Americans have shared rides in some form, whether as a carpool or a
campus ride board. We incorporate a number of identity & safety features and
are bringing far more transparency and accountability to ridesharing.

Like any form of public transit, there is some risk involved, but ultimately
we empower our users to make informed decisions. In line with the success of
Couchsurfing, Meetup and other services, we see more and more people
interested in rideshare as a fun and affordable form of transportation and
every week thousands of people are making the decision to share rides on
Ridejoy.

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jasonshen
Oh and if you're curious about how we built the app - here's an article on our
design process:

[http://pandodaily.com/2012/08/16/ridejoy-for-ios-behind-
the-...](http://pandodaily.com/2012/08/16/ridejoy-for-ios-behind-the-making-
of-a-ride-sharing-mobile-app/)

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jcarden
Ridejoy levels-up. Awesome jobs guys! It looks fantastic.

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jasonshen
Thanks so much! Hope we're able to match you with some awesome people to
rideshare with!

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RoboTeddy
I used ridejoy to find a ride to a trail race a few weeks ago-- it works
fantastically. It was a bit annoying having to check online day-of though;
it's gonna be nice having it on my phone next time.

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esusatyo
Any plans to make it available for international customers?

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lionhearted
Congrats!

Any particularly interesting lessons learned?

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jasonshen
Thanks! Longer may come down the road but some off the top of my head:

Mobile is totally different from web - small screen, on the go, harder to
easily iterate after launch

Get a feel for the apps you like/aspire to be - check out cool apps and get
ideas from the ones you like

Figure out what you're optimizing for - limited real estate means you need to
focus on the flows that matter to you

Do multiple rounds of user testing - you are going to be surprised by what
people try to do

Polish comes at the very end - easy to get ahead of yourself and you might
have to throw it out

