PickupPal Blog

Blown away that is all we can say here at PickupPal. We have partnered up with the Magnetic Hill Music Festival - providing exclusive VIP parking for fans going to the Eagles / John Fogerty / KT Tunstall / Sam Roberts mega show. Click here to find a ride or give a ride!

Some Press on it all:

• Carpooling website continues to match drivers with passengers as concert date draws nearer - Times Transcript
• Going to one of the biggest concerts of the year doesn’t have to create extra pollution - Moncton This Week
• Moncton music festival goes green, limits parking to carpoolers - CBC
• Moncton music festival goes green, limits parking to carpoolers - Yahoo News
• when heading to the Eagles show: Where should you park your car? - Times Transcript
• Moncton readies to welcome the Eagles - CBC

As I have mentioned before in this blog - the only way to get a VIP parking pass was to use PickupPal and rideshare to the show. Well as you can imagine at first we were a bit nervous - what if we can’t fill this massive parking lot with carpoolers? What if only say 100 people “Double up and Cut down!” what are we going to do with an empty parking lot!

Well that does not seem to be an issue - we are several days before the festival and we have completely sold out! Not a single parking spot available - not a single car with just a driver in it! What a great experience - we have had drivers with vans filling every seat - doing their part and it is just completely awesome! We have offset over 45,000 km’s that is more that driving completely around the world with ridesharing for one single night!

So all I can say is WOW!!! and just press play to the video below and listen to another great act that has graced the grounds of Magnetic Hill.

Cheers - Eric
P.S. If anyone can send me a picture with a PickupPal VIP parking pass on the dash at the Magnetic Hill Music Festival I will post it here on the blog and will be forever grateful!

PickupPal is the ridesharing partner of the London Symphony Orchestra. Yes, we are!

Many people think that ridesharing is something that other people are doing: those rock’n roll-ers, virgin festival going groupies, hippies and tree huggers - the fact is that everyone can be interested in ridesharing, really everyone.

There is no demographic hierarchy that applies here. All kinds of people all going all sorts of places, and they are all thinking about how to get there in a way that has the smallest impact on our planet and that does not cost them a lot of hard-earned money. We all care about these things, well most of us do. From Sydney to San Francisco, skaters to triathletes, commuters to farmers, rock ‘n rollers to Beethoven enthusiasts..there is a compelling reason to rideshare, to come together, right now. And I know Eric blogged recently that you can’t be be everything to everyone and I agree with that. But I think we can be something to a whole lot of people and that PickupPal can helps us all get there from here.

-Suesan (Community Relations)

There’s plenty of room at the PickupPal Parking Lot…. Such a lovely space - such a lovely idea. O.K. I know BAD humour - however what more do you want on a Friday afternoon after a night on the town, (Black Crowes at Bluesfest). So here is the deal The Magnetic Hill Festival and PickupPal have partnered up to provide Carpool parking only to PickupPal members/users, (here is the ERP for it). I love it - not because it makes people use PickupPal but because it sends a message - double up and cut down and you can get a perk for helping out.

Here is some press on it:

• http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/news/article/351547
• http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/07/11/nb-concert.html

NOTE: You just have to love the Eagles - who has not been swept away by Hotel California - or have thoughts of being swept away on a summer night by temptation.

Have a great weekend,

Cheers - Eric

Dabra Sinick, Kirkland, WA resident is definitely on our wavelength!

The bottom line for us in today’s world is to use the power of the internet and combine it with the people in a neighborhood to make changes and get things done. Carpooling/ride sharing seems a great place to start. (Source: Sometimes it’s the simple solutions)

And she also offers some smart advice on using sites like ours, if you’re concerned about privacy you can use a pseudonym, be selective about what information you provide and: “you can meet someone at an intersection and not in front of your home. (Source: Sometimes it’s the simple solutions)”

Following in the tread of Toyota’s Prius, Citroen are going eco with the C-Cactus.

Citroen C-Cactus

I would expect a lot of other car manufacturers to follow suit soon.

It dawned on me last night while watching Primus at the Ottawa Bluesfest - Primus is not for everyone. Then I took it a little further lots of stuff is not for everyone and that is an O.K. thing. I spend pretty much all my day trying to think why everyone does not use PickupPal - everyone needs PickupPal - you are crazy if you don’t just love PickupPal. No the crazy one is me - there are tons of people who will never use PickupPal - won’t even go there - will never rideshare with someone else - and you know what that is totally cool. We are working on making PickupPal even better and we have some awesome new features for V2 and the people who will really enjoy it are the ones who want to use PickupPal. Everything is about making it easier for our members to find others and to streamline the whole PickupPal process. I know that saying “Everything is not for everyone” probably sounds a bit lame - however the design decisions you have to go through to make the site appeal to a mass audience start making it work less for those who really want to use it. So in that spirit we want to stay true to our goal - getting people to ride together and stay on that track - just make it easier to do.

In any event I was just having this total Seth Godin Moment where you realize that you can’t be everything for everyone - but you should strive to be the best for those that want what you got.

NOTE: I love Primus and this YouTube clip was taken by someone who must have been standing right beside me and John Biro - PickupPal’s Security Analyst, (and also one of my best friends) - Primus is not for everyone but for the approximately 10,000 fans last night they put on an awesome show!.

Well I am really excited to announce our partnership with John Mayer and Reverb - working together to provide Ridesharing services to get to all of his concerts this summer.

If you are going to any of the shows you have to check out our custom page for this summers tour - http://concerts.pickuppal.com/JohnMayer. Also as part of an incentive to use PickupPal we just got word that there will be special “John Mayer” prize packs given to those that use PickupPal to get to the show - so there really is no reason not to use PickupPal to get to the show.

As a quick side note - I find it really inspirational to be associated with leaders like John Mayer, The Dave Matthews Band and all of our other partners in the music industry. There are a lot of things that an artist can do and say and get involved with and when they take the time to commit to something like a partnership with us I really find it humbling. It is this kind of leadership and trailblazing that paves the path to making a difference. Our joint vision is one that sees music fans getting together and making a significant difference in reducing CO2 emissions and working together to double up and cut down. It is more than words - it is a commitment and one that I find very inspiring.

Cheers - Eric
P.S. If you are going to Monday’s show in Toronto come by our booth at the Eco-Village and say hi! (Tell em Eric sent ya!)

One of the great things about being in the eco sector, is the depth and variety of other like-minded companies and individuals that you encounter. Surely the most interesting we have talked to recently are the folks behind GreenNexxus a website dedicated to creating a community in which people can share, knowledge, ideas and projects in the green space.

We think the synergies are so close with what we are wanting to accomplish at PickupPal, that we’ve decided to form an alliance, and through that, create awareness for each other’s offering. On the surface, what GreenNexxus wants to do sounds similar to what others may be doing in green community building:

“GreenNexxus provides the ability for people, organizations and businesses to share, publish and contribute green knowledge for the purposes of reducing our collective environmental impact.”

However, when you dig deeper, you get some perspective on the depth of knowledge within the organization….GreenNexxus provides the website and tools for all of the Al Gore Inconvenient Truth presenters globally (>2,000 people) to collaborate, sharing knowledge about what works and what doesn’t in giving the presentation and raising awareness for the dire situation the environment is in. In fact, one of the founders, Peter Corbyn, worked with Al Gore to train just over 250 Canadians to give the presentation.

Reach out to them – once there you can sign up and gain info about eco-projects, or start one. You can even donate to non-profit green organizations at their site and get discounts on green products.

If anyone gets it, and knows how to build/support a community in the eco space, it’s GreenNexxus, and we’re thrilled to be working with them.

Brent – EVP Business Development, PickupPal