GoLoco - Want to Carpool with...SoccerDude928?

social networking is being used to connect both people whom know each other and those who don't. many sites have a niche in the social networking society like college students, business professionals, singles (white, black, green, and blue), musicians..and the list goes on.

i'm sure there exists a social network for everything you are interested and anything you might hold in common with somebody. just when you thought this was the case...then there came another social network.

what do we have today? GoLoco.

GoLoco is a social networking site started by one of the founders of Zip Car which " is a service that helps people quickly arrange ride sharing between friends, neighbors, and colleagues. We also handle online payments from passengers to drivers for their share of the trip costs." -goloco.org

weirded out yet?

How Does it Work? -- GoLoco enables users to create a profile which has a picture of them, their interests, hobbies, friends (users), and college/university/employer with which they are associated.

On your profile you also post trips you are going on or trips you want to go on. This allows users to search through all the trips posted on the website and find a ride to a place where they too are going. Whether you're going somewhere, or want to get a ride to somewhere you post to either find a ride or give one. What i find to be interesting about GoLoco is that if you're somebody who has a car and can get somewhere on his/her own...the incentive is that you can charge for a ride to/from where you're going.

"While you can pick people up just for the sake of it, the website is also set up with money in mind. If you choose not to do it for free, the passenger pays a share of the total cost - and it will be deposited in the driver’s account (with the exception of 10%, which goes to the website) before you even meet each other. Assuming the driver doesn’t just ditch and keep the money, one person has gotten the ride they needed and the other now has more cash." - GoLoco Blog Write-Up

This is an interesting concept and use of a social network in that it can definitely help the environment out...less cars on the road, but it can also save somebody some money if they're going somewhere that somebody else needs to go.

While all this sounds find and dandy..the real question is how safe is finding somebody to carpool with online? At the inception of online dating - many were skeptical about meeting people whom they met online in person in a crowded restaurant in downtown DC. How do you feel about SoccerDude928 who you meet online coming to your house and you getting in their car for a 3 hour trip up to Philadelphia?

luckily -- GoLoco has thought about the safety aspect and has enabled users who have ridden with people to post comments and ratings about them. So if BeerBoy82 rode with JBWilson last week from DC to Annapolis he can write "Bad driver, smokes with the windows up -- don't recommend." Also, you can view people you have in common so if you see your friend Bill is a friend of SoccerDude928's then you can ask Bill about it. Thirdly, one of the important safety features is that if worst comes to worst....GoLoco sends your trip plans to a "secure buddy" that you have designated (friend, girlfriend, neighbor...) so that if you don't show up after 8 days at least somebody has some idea of who you drove with and to where.

even with the aforementioned safety restrains in place...i still feel like though its a great concept, it requires a lot of users to be signed up and a lot of feedback to be available in order for people to feel comfortable enough to drive with SoccerDude928. I just don't think we're quite ready to instill this kind of trust...yet in an age where somebody we require to have 90%+ feedback before we dare buy a $14 dollar item from them on eBay!

....a comment on one of the writeups I saw regarding GoLoco stated, "Why don’t they just make a website where you volunteer to get raped and dismembered? It’d save a step."