MASHABLE — Feb 6 — PickupPal helps its users find a ride. Users can put in a request for getting a ride to where they need to go including the price they are willing to pay. PickupPal gets a 7% commission on the deal. Of course safety is an issue, which is why PickupPal lets users rate each other, and stats are kept on users, indicating the number of rides they've given and taken, as well as the number of packages they've delivered. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE
The owners of PickupPal obviously see their site as fulfilling a service currently not catered for. I’m afraid that after visiting the site, I’m immediately reminded of frustrating sites such as schoolfriendsreunited.com. For those that are unaware of this site, payment blocks at every stage made the site infuriating to use. The site administrators attempted to carefully protect their revenue streams. In doing so, all email addresses and other contact details within user profiles were monitored and deleted. To contact somebody, a membership fee was needed. The end result was that users stayed away in droves and the revenue model has now been reviewed and changed to a free model.
Despite PickupPal being ten minutes old, they are already up to the same tricks. The forums moderators make it clear that members are unable to use the forum to look for rides, or advertise rides. “That’s our livelihood thank you very much. Please register as a user and pay us our 7%!”
This is where the problem lies. A central resource to aide car pooling could be a sustainable idea. However, PickupPal will not be the preferred site of potential poolers. This should ultimately be a government or not-for-profit initiative. If local or state governments do not offer this service in the near future, then a copycat “free provider” inevitably will. (Perhaps revenue will be based on advertising?)
Despite what the sites creators may think, PickupPal will simply not prosper under a paid user model.
The owners of PickupPal obviously see their site as fulfilling a service currently not catered for. I’m afraid that after visiting the site, I’m immediately reminded of frustrating sites such as schoolfriendsreunited.com. For those that are unaware of this site, payment blocks at every stage made the site infuriating to use. The site administrators attempted to carefully protect their revenue streams. In doing so, all email addresses and other contact details within user profiles were monitored and deleted. To contact somebody, a membership fee was needed. The end result was that users stayed away in droves and the revenue model has now been reviewed and changed to a free model.
Despite PickupPal being ten minutes old, they are already up to the same tricks. The forums moderators make it clear that members are unable to use the forum to look for rides, or advertise rides. “That’s our livelihood thank you very much. Please register as a user and pay us our 7%!”
This is where the problem lies. A central resource to aide car pooling could be a sustainable idea. However, PickupPal will not be the preferred site of potential poolers. This should ultimately be a government or not-for-profit initiative. If local or state governments do not offer this service in the near future, then a copycat “free provider” inevitably will. (Perhaps revenue will be based on advertising?)
Despite what the sites creators may think, PickupPal will simply not prosper under a paid user model.