Calling all Burners: Zimride to the playa

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Burning Man

Every year, tens of thousands of adventurous souls travel near and far to converge on the playa, Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, for the annual Burning Man festival. Due to high ridesharing demands, Craigslist’s rideshare section typically sees hundreds of Burning Man posts. But this year, Burners will have another way of getting there.

Zimride has developed an easier way for attendees who are offering or needing a ride to share their ride to the festival. Simply post your ride and see a list of Burners taking the same route. Unlike Craigslist, Zimride allows you to see profiles, pictures and music preferences before sharing the ride (or RV).

Like Burning Man, Zimride was founded with a focus on community. We believe communities are built on the shoulders of shared experiences, and we’ve set out to create a new form of transportation that’s built from the ground up with community participation.

If you’re heading to the playa and need a lift, we’ve got you covered.

For other events, check out the “Latest Events” section on www.zimride.com.

Zimride to CrunchUp and Summer Party at August Capital

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Dave McClure

Today not only are we excited to launch our first public route (SF to LA) and a redesigned homepage, we are also announcing a free rideshare service for TechCrunch’s CrunchUp and Summer Party at August Capital. Anyone who has attended the party in the past knows that parking can be pretty crazy. So we setup two custom event pages so you share the ride with attendees here:

Entrepreneurs: Post your ride and tweet #pitchVCzimride to win a chance to “pitch and Zimride” with 1 of the following: Dave McClure (500 Startups), Ann Miura-Ko (FLOODGATE), Manu Kumar (K9 Ventures), Raj Kapoor (Mayfield Fund) and Kent Goldman (First Round Capital).

Inspired by Dave McClure’s use of entrepreneurs to get free rides to the airport, we wanted to extend this type of opportunity to the TechCrunch community. We will review best tweets and enter you to win!

American Road Trip (and commute) Reborn with Zimride

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Today marks the day 100 million miles have been traveled among users in the Zimride network. This massive milestone demonstrates the beginning of a reborn American road trip and commute. This comes at a time when AAA is reporting a decrease in July 4th travel due to high gas prices. Consumers are looking for easy ways to cut down their gas costs and sharing the ride is the simplest ways reduce this expense. Over the last 3 years, Zimride drivers and passengers have saved $50 million in vehicle operating expenses.

The 100 millionth mile was driven by Lauren Vargas, a student at UCSC on her way to Los Angeles. Zimride is awarding Lauren free gas money for the month of July. We notified Lauren today over the phone and she told us, “I’ve had 8 really great Zimride experiences getting paid more than $600 driving down to LA and back to school. In fact, the cost effectiveness made it possible for me to maintain a relationship in LA. Additionally, I re-connected with a friend from middle school and now hang out with him on a regular basis thanks to our Zimride!”

Today we are also excited to announce our 100th client network. Zimride networks now include all 10 schools in the University of California system, Stanford, Harvard, Facebook and Intuit. These milestones brings us one step closer to creating a nationwide marketplace for drivers to monetize the empty seats in their vehicles by selling them to passengers who are traveling along the same route. Check out the sweet infographic below that our designer Marc put together to celebrate the occasion.

Here are a few more details on the recent milestones:

  • 100 clients / networks
  • 100 million miles shared
  • $50 million in vehicle operating expenses
  • 26,706 carpools formed
    • 44% are commutes that result in an avg. of 200 daily round trips
    • 56% are long distance trips that average 175 miles each way
  • Zimride has also partnered with several artists including Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews Band and Sheryl Crow to provide ridesharing to their events

To join our team in creating a transportation revolution, check out our jobs page and drop us a line.

A variation of this post was also featured on TechCrunch Friday, July 1.

Zimride 100 Infographic

Top 12 Reasons to Work at Zimride (Because 10 is Too Conventional)

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Zimvelopers keepin' it real.

Imagine a world where you are passionate about your job, you look forward to seeing your colleagues, your opinions are heard, and your actions contribute to a greater good. Imagine a world where you wake up and enjoy to going to work everyday. A world where you actually LOVE your job.

I hear the voice in your head saying that a job like this could never be possible… Or could it?

I was the person who, no matter what I did, slumped into a dark state of depression every Sunday afternoon, knowing I had another full week ahead of me. I, along with most of the American workforce, took too few vacation days, worked too many hours, and felt unappreciated at work. I ended up hating my job… until Zimride saved me.

Okay, that may be a bit dramatic, but Zimride has transformed my perception of how great a workplace can actually be. I still can’t sleep at night, but it’s no longer because I’m anxious and stressed about having to go to work the next morning. Instead, it’s because I have so many thoughts and ideas racing through my mind about our product, our team, our users, and our vision. Zimride embodies the dynamic, social, and green program we promote.

Bean baggin' it.

Here are a few more reasons why Zimride rocks:

1. My co-workers, AKA my Zimfam, embrace discussion and are open to change. We feel passionate about community-powered transportation.

2. We provide a social networking site for ridematching. Needless to say, our group is extremely social together. We don’t make a beeline for the exit at 4:59 PM.

3. We take the hipster approach to the transportation industry: We turn something uncool (carpooling) into something cool (Zimride).

4. Zimride embraces a healthy and comfortable work environment. Casual dress code, yoga mats for stretching, hula hoops for core, and a team run once in a while!

5. Zimmies think outside the box. We can’t make carpooling cool with a conventional approach.

Meetings don't have to be boring.

6. We recognize and reward each other for jobs well done–including our monthly Chubby Bunny Champ and Cornhole King or Queen.

7. We believe it’s normal to work with a cardboard cutout of Justin Bieber next to our desk while Michael Jackson blasts on our office speakers.

8. Three words: Unlimited vacation days. Since we don’t track your extra hours on nights and weekends, we won’t track your vacation time either. :) Instead we focus purely on results and productivity!

9. Our office is fit for fun. We have toys galore: soccer equipment, a basketball hoop, foursquare and foosball.

Playin' games.

10. Zimmies are dynamic thinkers with diverse backgrounds. Learning is central to our work. You’re guaranteed to soak up something new every day!

11. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. Our Zimwall of Awesome includes funny quotes and pictures from our partners, users, and each other.

12. The Zimride team is driven (no pun intended) to make the world a better place.

I can thank Zimride for introducing me to a world of fun at work, but I’ve learned more than how to create a fun place to work. Life is short. Have fun. Work hard. Stay curious. Try new things. Prove people wrong when they say it can’t be done. Laugh at yourself when you make mistakes. And, of course, meet new people, because we’ve learned from over 350,000 Zimriders that life really is better when you share a ride!

Zimride is hiring! Visit our Jobs page for more information.

Cut the cost of gas in half

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Photo by: Nathan E Photography

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’re probably well aware that gas prices have skyrocketed this past year. But were you aware how much? As of last week, the national average cost of a gallon of regular, unleaded gasoline had risen to $3.97, a whopping 36.5% increase from last year. And that’s just the average. In California, the price of gas hit an astronomical $4.25 a gallon!

Maybe it’s time to consider renaming the “latte factor” to the “gas element.”

Of course, what goes up must come down, right? Apparently not anytime soon. And since we can’t control how much gas costs, most of us are trying to figure out how we can use less of it. There are some interesting ways to help you reduce your fuel consumption, like taking the bus or hypermiling. While valid, these options aren’t always accessible—or safe—for everyone and may not actually reduce the impact on your wallet.

And the impact is significant. The average American drives approximately 13,500 miles per year in a standard gas-run vehicle averaging 25.5 miles per gallon. At $4 a gallon, that’s an average of nearly $200 a month spent exclusively on petrol. That’s enough for nearly two double iced chai extra foam lattes a day!

But what if you could cut that cost in half by doing one simple thing? As it turns out, you can. It’s called carpooling, and we’re rebooting it for the 21st Century.

Approximately 76% of commuters drive alone. So, why aren’t most of those drivers sharing their empty seats or riding together? Because carpooling and rideboards have traditionally sucked. That’s why we’re building a social network for ridesharing that makes it easy for anyone to share a ride. Whether you’re willing to drive or need a lift, Zimride has you covered. Just post your starting and ending location, and we’ll match you up with others going the same way. It’s really that simple.

We may not be able to fix gas prices. And, unlike a latte, fuel is still a necessity. Fortunately for our wallets, driving alone isn’t.

A version of this post ran on our partner Esurance’s blog earlier this week.

3 Reasons Esurance is All About Carpooling

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Photo by: Divine in the Daily

Esurance is a long-time partner of Zimride. As a direct result of the partnership, carpoolers have saved more than a million driving miles to Esurance-sponsored events like the Sasquatch! Music Festival. We’ve also teamed up to make it easier for Esurance associates to carpool their commutes.

If you’re wondering why a car insurance company would care so much about carpooling, we’re here to explain. Here are the top 3 reasons why Esurance loves a good carpool:

1. Fewer cars, fewer crashes

This is a primary motivation for all insurance providers to rally behind the carpooling cause.

When we each take our own cars to work, we contribute to traffic jams and slightly increase our risk for a collision or mechanical breakdown. Congestion is a leading cause of accidents, and can have a maddening domino effect. All it takes is a single car hitting a guardrail during rush hour. Traffic thickens and becomes more dangerous as the car is cleared and our natural rubbernecking tendency kicks in. Prime time for fender benders.

Congestion also leads to road rage, which is another leading cause of avoidable accidents. Some of the most popular and effective carpools take place during commuting hours, and there’s no better time to take a car off the road.

We have a dream of a rush hour filled with happily chatting passengers and relaxed drivers, and Zimride’s working to turn that goal into rush-hour reality. The bottom-line for Esurance as an insurance company, though, is this: Fewer cars on the road makes for safer driving. And fewer accidents lead to fewer claims — and better car insurance rates.

2. It’s green

And Esurance is reaaaaaaaaaaaaally big on green. This eco-emphasis sprouted during our dot-com roots, when we helped turn a traditionally paper-hungry industry into an electronic one. In the decade-plus since, our interest in saving trees has blossomed into numerous green partnerships and tree plantings across the country.

And encouraging our customers and associates to carpool is another way we’re able to help green the planet. Consider the eco-benefits of carpooling: If you carpool 30 miles a day with 3 other people, the shared car (let’s say it gets 25 mpg) emits 3.122 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That might sound like a lot, but by leaving Cliff’s Chrysler, Joe’s (classic) Scout, and Diane’s Prowler at home, the 4 of you end up saving 9.366 tons of CO2 a year.

That’s a full-grown elephant’s worth of greenhouse gas saved by a few friendly commuters.

3. It’s community

Esurance sponsors and supports community events from Tampa to Tacoma, and what better way to get to them? To make it easier for everyone to find a ride, we work with Zimride to create event-specific pages for all of our sponsored events.

Last year was a banner year for Esurance ridesharing. People who signed up to share rides to sponsored events saved 1,484,853 driving miles over the course of the year. That’s 6.21 trips to the moon, not to mention an army of greenhouse-gas elephants spared.

So there you have it. Hopefully that clarifies our car insurance company’s interest in filling seats as easily as possible. See what ride-shareable events are in the cooker and sign up for a seat by visiting the Esurance carpool page.

Introducing Zimride Inbox

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Our goal with Zimride has always been to make sharing rides simple, convenient, and social. But until two weeks ago, organizing your Zimride required you to take conversation matters into your own hands, relying on your own methods of communication to coordinate your rides with other users. Many Zimriders found it frustrating trying to organize their carpools, as each user prefers a different method of communication, whether it be emails, phone calls, or text messages.

That’s why we’re excited to introduce your Zimride Inbox, a new messaging platform. Now, when you login to your Zimride account, you’ll see a summary of all new and ongoing conversations in your Inbox prominently displayed. There are three key features that we are really excited about:

Context

Every conversation on Zimride is about a particular ride, so we’ve added a lot of contextual information about those rides. Starting with the first email notification you receive when you get a new message, you’ll see the other user’s route and how far away they are from you. Within each conversation you can see a map displaying both rides, so that you can easily figure out pickup and drop-off locations that make the most sense.

Better privacy

Privacy is one of the most important aspects to the Zimride user experience, and we are excited to have made significant improvements with this new messaging system. Previously, when you wanted to contact another user on Zimride, you would need to send them an email, and the conversation would take place from your email inbox. Now with the new messaging system you can contact other users without ever revealing your personal email address. When you receive a new message, Zimride will send you a copy of the message in an email notification – and the other user will never see your email address.

Movable messaging dialogue

Previously, the messaging pop-up dialogue box wasn’t movable – so when you clicked “send message” a messaging pop-up dialogue would appear and cover up the user’s profile and ride information. Time and time again we saw users frustrated with this, as they would need to refer to information on the profile while typing their message. Now you can simply move the messaging box anywhere on the page as you type your message. For the techy folks, we made this change by switching from Facebox to the much more flexible jQuery UI dialog.

At Zimride, our users always come first. We’re listening and would love your feedback. Leave us a comment, send us an email, or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.

Happy messaging, and remember, life is better when you share the ride.

The Zimride Advantage

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This week’s BCS National Championship game concludes another year of college football bowls (don’t worry, this isn’t another BCS opinion entry).  There were upsets, heartbreaks, close-calls, and blowouts.  While the games can be hard to predict, hindsight can offer interesting statistics.  The advantage that no one saw coming: Zimride!

Schools that partner with Zimride finished the bowl season 6-1!  This year, bowl victories were celebrated at Stanford, USF,  San Diego St, UCF, UW and UNC (sorry Michigan, we can only do so much).  Two games pitted Zimride schools against each other, so they simply cancelled each other out – props to UMD and NC State on the wins.  Zimride can’t claim credit on any direct impact that we had on games, but it raises some interesting questions about fan support at neutral locations.

There’s no doubt that the home field advantage makes a difference.  Some credit the psychology of the experience for players, but when crowd noise forces the visiting team to take a timeout, it can change the outcome in a close game.  Zimride allows users to post rides to games and be matched up with other people going the same way.  As gas prices creep higher, many college students will be priced out of traveling to upcoming sporting events.  The costs of driving alone or purchasing a bus ticket simply outweigh the benefits of the trip.  When a student fills his empty seats on a trip they intended to take anyways, they incur no costs and are often paid gas money.  Rarely is there a price dispute, because the passenger is getting the deal of a lifetime compared to what they would pay on a crowded bus, making frequent stops along the way.

This is bigger than carpooling.  A recent post on Twitter said, “ Zimride is amazing. I got a ride to airport at 10x lower cost than cab with nicer car and fun chat. The world is getting better and better..”

We can’t promise that your team will win, but when you’re driving to a sporting event, consider taking other fans with you.  Zimride’s Event feature makes it even easier to organize fans going the same way – check out VCU’s basketball page.  A few extra voices in the crowd might be just what your team needs to create that home field advantage.

Spend or Share: The Rise in Collaborative Consumption

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After having read Rachel Botsmans book titled “What’s Mine Is Yours,” I started looking into the idea and philosophies behind collaborative consumption. Yes, I’m an avid couch surfer, I’m a Zipcar member, and I even occasionally use TaskRabbit but I still wasn’t seeing the bigger movement happening around me. It hit me shortly after when talking with my colleagues in the Zimride office that I was in the midst of a huge movement. A movement to share and collaborate instead of consuming and wasting. Maybe it’s the economy. Maybe it’s the climate change. Who knows… but I do know one thing. People’s mindsets are embracing the idea of collaborative consumption and change is coming. Fast.

Since the times of hyper-consumption, economics have changed and people’s mindset’s have progressed. What used to be regarded as an indication of higher social standing, now dimly sits behind the new trend of being wisely economical. Status and happiness no longer arise from owning an abundance of material goods. It now comes from connecting and collaborating with those around you to share common goals and common goods.

The value in sharing goods and services has become so important in boosting individual’s moods, creating support networks, and savings households big money that companies have begun to pop up to specifically accomodate these nationwide priorities. Investors are seeing, understanding and appreciating the value these companies offer which explains why many of these companies have also received big funding. Taskrabbit (hire someone to do tasks), Ubercab (immediate car service), Airbnb (rent personal home space), and Zipcar (carshare) are just a few of the highly succuessful companies whom have focused their niche around the idea of collaborative consumption. Why lose sleep and increase stress over completing low priority tasks when you can easily utilize other people’s down time and hire them to compelte the task for you? Why stay in a quiet and generic hotel room when you can utilize someone’s free space in their cozy home? Why drive independantly from others going the same direction when you could share the ride, share the costs, and share the conversations?  Better yet, why not share the car and the ride?

Gone are the days of hyper consumption where consumers purchased one new piece of clothing every 5.5 days, where we quickly succumbed to the over 3,000 advertising messages we see per day, and where we indirectly supported having more malls in America than schools. Consumers now days are savvy, economical and collaborative. Why? Because saving money, space, and time will never go out of style.

Rachel Botsman's Chart on Collaborative Consumption

Rachel Botsman's Chart on Collaborative Consumption

Zimride Users Share their Stories

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Recently, we reached out to over 600 Zimride users to get their stories about utilizing Zimride, and OH BOY! we get some real great ones!  We’ll share some of our favorites, and we start out with a fantastic story with quite the picture…

As you can probably guess from the photo above, this Zimrider drove through Wisconsin (I mean, where else are you going to find a cheesehead monster cow?!).  She tells her story best:

We carpooled to Eau Claire, WI, on the weekend of Sept 17 -19, and it was a fun weekend had by all!  Alyssa visited friends on the UW-Eau Claire campus and also her boyfriend at UW-Stout.  Joel visited friends on the Eau Claire campus.  And Jenny visited friends who live right near campus.  We drove over in Jenny’s Dad’s honda civic, and we listened to some great tunes in the car.  We even jammed out and sang along to some songs like Maroon 5.

On the ride home on Sunday, as we were leaving Eau Claire, we drove by Heckel’s restaurant.  In front of the restaurant we saw this great cow wearing a cheesehead and we had to get a picture.  As we drove home to Oshkosh, we listened to the Packer game in the car!

Using the ride board is a great way to make friends and save the environment!!

If you are a Zimrider (and we sure hope you are!) and you want to get some spotlight on our blog, send us your story and picture to community@zimride.com.  Happy Zimriding!