Ants announced today that Statoil Denmark is building off of their platform to provide ridesharing services through Staoil's "moBilen" app for iPhone and Android, as well as through Statoil's Facebook page.
"It's like we're building a social railway grid and now we need railway stations, so from now on we'll suggest our users to arrange pickup/dropoff on Statoil stations in our apps. Statoil is the first oil company in the world to promote collaborative consumption in the transport business," says Aleksander Soender, CEO of Ants.
The integration with Statoil in Denmark is currently considered a pilot project, but there are plans to expand the project to the rest of Scandinavia, as well as the Baltic countries and Russia. Ants was founded in Denmark, but has a team of four developers from Denmark, Norway and Finland.
Ants' ridesharing service was previously only available on iPhone, but now has also released an Android app. CEO Aleksander Soender tells us their focus is still 100% mobile, "but it's awesome that Statoil built a web app running on Facebook so everyone who doesn't have a smartphone can now use our service through Facebook."
The team has been busy. Soon, they are launching a "one click" payment system that will allow users to pay each other without using cash. This will allow riders to not have to worry about carrying exact change, and Ants will then take a small cut of the payment to monetize the service.
The API that Statoil is building off of should be released sometime this winter. The team is also launching Ants for Windows Phone in November, and have more partnerships lined up for the rest of Fall and Winter. Soender says that they've gottten a lot of requests to use their technology, from a kindergarten in Lyngby to the German military.
Ridesharing is such an obviously "good" concept, and Ants has made it easy to share your upcoming trips through your phone. I may be biased because last weekend I took a trip on a packed bus to another city, but I remember looking out the window wishing I could pay all those cars good money to get off the bus and ride in a car like a human being. Ants facilitates that, but it still needs to reach critical mass in Finland. Luckily it looks like the app is picking up speed with its new partnerships.
You can download Ants on iPhone and Android.
meniscus the colony kids choice awards ncaa final four 2012 texas chainsaw massacre uk vs louisville university of kansas
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.