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 :)
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...
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.)
Potentially very useful. I often attend dance exchanges; most of those going know each other but logistics are a hassle.
One event organizer is currently using a google-doc hosted spreadsheet. Something that was announced and promoted with the event could make attendance easier (which organizers love).
A web UI could help show people on the way - maybe graphically with a map, so you don't need to do any algo work.
Please let me know if you do this; chebuctonian at gmail. Thanks!
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!