Ok, my name is Leo and I'm an Android developer. In 2000 I actually investigated the potential of dynamic ride sharing and came to the conclusion it is not feasible due to software being in the hands of the network and device providers. Later, when Android and iOS came along I had other stuff to do but noticed how many tried to enter in this market and my conclusion is still that you would have to seed it in a way that you get at least 10,000 users in one big city to start with.
10,000 global users will just not cut it by many orders of magnitude. Charging $1 for an app to try it out will not help to get to critical mass.
Please, other Leo, make the first year for free for your own and nature's good. I'm dreaming of ad hock ride shares becoming a reality since sooooo long and guess it would only work if it was pre-installed and activated by default on many many phones but then it could really have a huge impact on the global CO2 output.
Further thoughts on the app:
Make it social:
* Users should be able to pick who they want to ride with, including age, sex, car brand etc. Stricter filters are less rides.
* Users should be able to pick who they don't want to ride with, little or bad feedback for example
* Users should be able to contact their ride partners without sharing any Facebook names, phone numbers etc.
* Optionally Users should be checked in on their rides for security. For extra paranoia, the app could send a special message to a contact person if the user doesn't check out from a ride. Ride sharing is little popular out of security concerns and full track of one's movement with check-in on a ride should reduce risks involved dramatically.
* Let the driver define a price per km (for friends, friends of friends, others)
* ask if you want more ideas. This is endless but I guess my post will not be noticed by the other Leo anyway ;)
Sorry, but you're asking a homeless guy who has just made his first app to make it free? Look, I'm all for nature, but I'm more for giving him a chance to make a good living.
I feel like freemium would be a good move in this case. Make it free with ads, with an option to make a $1 dev donation to remove the ads. People who have been digging this story can help Leo out, people who are just using the app because it's useful still get it for free.
Love the idea of this. Perhaps instead of "little feedback", which could leave people new to the app with no-one to carpool with, you could restrict results to those who have verified a Facebook profile.
The idea being that friends can confirm users are who/what they say they are
10,000 global users will just not cut it by many orders of magnitude. Charging $1 for an app to try it out will not help to get to critical mass.
Please, other Leo, make the first year for free for your own and nature's good. I'm dreaming of ad hock ride shares becoming a reality since sooooo long and guess it would only work if it was pre-installed and activated by default on many many phones but then it could really have a huge impact on the global CO2 output.
Further thoughts on the app: Make it social: