Rent-a-car 2.0 = Zipcar
Posted on October 10, 2007
I’m opening a new blog category: Innovative Business Ideas. It might just give you…ideas.
Now, let’s talk about an amazing idea I’ve seen last week, what I would call Rent-a-car 2.0. If you are not familiar with the Web 2.0 concept, well, to make it short, it’s a new Internet Era (well, at least geeks are saying so). It’s different from what we, normal folks call Internet (they call this Web 1.0.) and they say it has already started with social networking like Facebook and stuff like that.
So I’m going to talk you about 2.0. in rent a car business. Meaning it involves some sort of web services, and is fundamentally more evolved than the normal Rent a car services. It’s called Zipcar and it’s available in USA and UK.
So what’s so great about Zipcar? Well, you can rent a car by the hour and you can pick it from a location near you. Let’s say you just need the car for 2 hours to take you from the office to the airport and back. You have 2 options here: a) drive from home in the morning (even if you don’t normally take the car) and b) rent a car for the day.
With Zipcar is easier, ecofriendly, less paperwork and worry free. Because all you have to do (if you are a member) is to go online on the Zipcar site, open their map, and look for a car near your location. It can be 2 blocks away (They say “With Zipcar, you always have a car around the corner.”). Then, you can reserve it online for as long as you need. Use it, and bring it back.
From my point of view that’s easier as I don’t have to go to a rental point which can be far away. I don’t have any paper work to do, so you actually spend less time to get the car. It’s eco-friendly because you don’t have to take your car in the morning only for this trip - less cars on the street, more parking spaces. It’s worry free as you don’t have to put gas in it or return it with the full tank. And when you get back, you just have to park it on the same reserved place.
I’m quite impressed with the concept. It’s more efficient, user friendly and eco-friendly. That should make Zipcar a kick ass rent a car service! If you don’t believe me, they have an impressive press coverage
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Hey, Cristian, I was checking out the map for the U.S. and the only thing I noticed was that there weren’t many of these things around yet. Only a couple in selected cities and they aren’t even necessarily the largest. For example, there don’t seem to be any in the city of Philadelphia, which would be closer to me, and even if there were I don’t imagine there will be one in my hometown for a very long time. There are none in LA either which I think is odd. One thing I think people who haven’t visited the U.S. don’t realize is how big and spread out everything is. I think it will be a long time until these are a common site in every town.