[necubi]

Sounds very similar to Hitch[0] which launched a couple of months ago in SF. It sounds very useful for long, expensive trips (e.g., cross bay, down to south bay) where the fixed cost of picking up or dropping off another passenger is a smaller factor.

On an unrelated note, how is the form at the bottom supposed to update you when UberPool is in your area? Area codes are going to be inaccurate for anybody who's moved since they got their cell phone number.

[0] http://www.takehitch.com/

[netcan]

This is one of those examples where the raw idea is not the main part.

Uber have a lot of advantages. They have a userbase of passengers and drivers that can be brought over to new services. They have the media's attention, including mainstream media. They have the cash to run at a loss while building up. They have presence in a lot of cities. They also have the competence to do this well.

Imagine that you build a "person search." You enter a name. It brings up a page with pictures, facts and other information collected around the web. It's nifty. That's interesting. But, if Google put a little "people" link between images and news in their search page and person search will have hundreds of thousands of users this week.

The news here is "uber launch carpooling service," not "carpooling service now exists." Rightly so, IMO. If this works well, there could be tens of thousands of user in a couple of months.

[bduerst]

I agree - I could help but think while reading this that I've seen a couple services like this already.

But you're right, the key to this is the implementation of the idea over the idea itself. Uber (probably) will generate a larger network of car poolers, which is necessary for this type of service to work.

[mrmaddog]

I've used Hitch regularly over the past few months, and it works well for short trips. Half the time I don't carpool (and I still pay half price), and the other half of the time adds just a couple extra minutes (haven't gone more than 5 minutes out of my way). My one issue with Hitch so far is that occasionally it takes a while to get me a ride. Uber has a leg up here, as it has a huge scale advantage. When I open my app, I can see 5 ubers in a 3 block radius - which is pretty astounding reach.

[ngoel36]

My guess is that they'll first just correlate it numbers from their database...

[abalone]

Long distance is harder. It'd work for popular commuter patterns, but you'd want a more structured service for that.

For a general near-real-time hailing system, limiting it to a smaller area means that even if your best match would add a relatively high distance penalty (say 50%), in absolute terms that's still tolerable (a few extra minutes). So that increases the probability of finding a match right now where the economics work out.

[madeofpalk]

Also seeing as Uber is such an international country (159 cities in 43 countries), I was disappointed at the complete lack of i18n in the article.

[mynameisvlad]

It's their blog. They're a US-based company primarily (although not exclusively) focused on US consumers. You can expect that to result in English blog posts, just as you might expect a French company dealing with some France-only consumers to post in French.

[madeofpalk]

Sorry, my bad. When I said i18n, I didn't mean I expected them to post in other languages, but I expected them to mention geographical availabilities and what not.

[mynameisvlad]

Ah, gotcha. Didn't they say the plan to expand on August 15th? I'd assume they'd be announcing the availability outside of the SF private beta then.

[cwyers]

The thing is, I never use Uber when I'm in my area, because that's where my car is. I use Uber when I'm travelling.

[pyb]

I can't imagine Hitch still competing in this market in a month's time.

[gmu3]

Not to sound pedantic, but I think you mean marginal cost.