Posts Tagged ‘UpStart Mobile’

Announcing Cabulous for the Web!

April 19th, 2010

New Web Service Transforms the Way San Francisco Hails a Cab

Cabulous.com allows consumers to see, hail, and track nearby taxis on the web for free

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – April 12th, 2010 — UpStart Mobile, makers of the popular Cabulous iPhone app, today announced the launch of Cabulous.com, a free service that helps consumers instantly hail and track cabs from the web.

With over 300 licensed taxi drivers across more than 25 cab companies participating mainly in San Francisco, passengers have already begun to take advantage of the service to painlessly hail taxis from their homes, offices, and on the go.

“It is so much fun being able to watch all the cabs driving around on the map, then just clicking on one and seeing him come to you,” says John Wolpert, CEO of UpStart Mobile. “It’s like having a fleet of personal drivers.”

Cabulous, which has been available as a free iPhone app since December 2009, is the first GPS-based service that allows consumers to see available cabs nearby on a map and hail the driver of their choice with just a touch. Once the driver confirms that s/he is on the way, the passenger can track their cab’s progress on the map.

The hailed drivers, in turn, can use their own smartphone’s Cabulous application to see the passenger’s location on a map. To prevent no-shows and increase efficiency, passengers and drivers can call each other directly through Cabulous when they are having difficulty finding one another.

In one popular feature currently available only on the iPhone app, passengers bookmark cabbies they like as “Favorite Drivers” in order to easily spot them the next time they need a cab – a plus for drivers who want to build customer loyalty and get more regulars.

Cabulous drivers are mostly local to San Francisco at this time, but any driver in the world can sign up and tell passengers to hail him or her through Cabulous.com or the iPhone app. Participating drivers can already be found in Austin, Miami, Chicago, San Jose, Zurich, Sydney and Barcelona.

About UpStart Mobile, Inc.

UpStart Mobile develops location-based mobile solutions. Cabulous, UpStart’s flagship product, was conceived and developed in a Best Buy incubator program in 2008 and spun out in 2009 to be incorporated under UpStart Mobile. The company’s leadership team has direct experience in the commercial transportation industry, a history of working with governments in the US, Asia and Europe, and 20 years experience leading startups and creative development teams.

For further information, please visit http://www.cabulous.com

Women 2.0

April 13th, 2010

Here is a video with UpStart Mobile Team Member, Tal Flanchraych, talking about the future of the Taxi industry.

MacWorld Coverage of Cabulous by Teencastic

February 20th, 2010

Here’s a great video clip covering Cabulous at MacWorld 2010.

Cabulous @ MacWorld 2010

Welcome to Cabulous – The Video

February 11th, 2010

This Taxi is Groooovy, Baby!

February 7th, 2010

San Francisco’s Haydar, known for his famous Disco Cab (part of the Town Taxi fleet), can now be found wherever he is in the city with Cabulous!

Welcome Disco Cab!

December’s Cabulous Top Driver On His Regular Customers

January 10th, 2010

Cabulous is all about giving drivers the tools to build deep relationships with their customers, leading to regular repeat business.

Will – who drives for Luxor in San Francisco and is one of four Cabulous Top Driver award winners – is shown in this video talking about his repeat customers.

Don’t Be Creepy – The Cabulous Mantra

November 1st, 2009

When it comes to the exciting, emerging, exploding, area of location-based services (LBS), there really should be a sort of universal prime directive. Here it is:  ”Don’t be Creepy”

Cabulous is a new service from UpStart Mobile , and UpStart’s mantra is – wait for it – yeah: “Don’t Be Creepy!” (It’s kinda like Google’s “don’t be evil”.)

Cabulous lets you see nearby taxis on your smartphone map – the exact location of actual drivers. But it does not let anyone see you. You reveal your position only when you hail a specific driver and choose to let him – and only him – see where you are. (Presumably at that point you want the driver to know where you are.) If you do nothing else, your position disappears after a few minutes, and not even we at UpStart Mobile can tell where you are.

Ruling from the prime directive judges: Not so creepy.
(Just kidding…there really aren’t any prime directive judges, though we are talking to Leonard Nimoy and Shatner about it.)

So if you are looking for a Taxi App – make sure that it passes the creepy test and doesn’t do things like send your position to a bunch of drivers you don’t know. The only driver who should see where you are is the one you hail.

The First Ride

October 24th, 2009

This is the first time Cabulous was used to catch a real taxi.

The passenger was at Marina and Divisadero in San Francisco, spotted Cabulous driver Kieran Farr driving across town in the financial district and hailed with Cabulous. Kieran accepted the hail, and was able to see the passenger walking up to Lombard street. The cab and passenger met at Chestnut street.

The best part of the experience was how being able to confidently walk around and being able to see each other the entire time made the relatively long distance between hail and pick up location seem very short. Passenger didn’t have to wait in one spot wondering where the driver was, and the driver saw where the the passenger was walking… And saved four blocks in gas,thanks to the passenger walking towards the driver.

Cabulous – The First Ride

Cabulous Essentials

October 16th, 2009

Catching a taxi can be a frustrating experience – first, not knowing where the nearest cab might be, and then waiting blindly wondering when (or if) it will arrive. Worse is the frustration of a driver responding to a call and arriving to find the passenger has already taken another cab.

UpStart Mobile’s new product, Cabulous™ is the first location-based solution that enables both passengers and drivers to see exactly where each other are in real time, from hail to pick-up. Customers can see all the nearest available drivers on their smartphone, then hail one with a single touch. Once hailed, the driver sees on his smartphone exactly where the passenger is, even if the passenger walks down the block or around a corner.

There are over six million commercial drivers, losing over $5 billion annually on downtime and no-shows. Cabulous reduces no-shows by creating a visual link between driver and passenger. It reduces downtime by increasing the chance a driver will be spotted and hailed while driving, even through low-density areas. And because Cabulous is the first to capitalize on the explosion in drivers’ personal smartphone adoption this year (over 30% and climbing), passengers can not only spot a cab, but they can track their favorite individual drivers, increasing customer loyalty.