NEW YORK -- Social networking has finally come to the aid of drivers ceaselessly circling in hope of finding a parking spot on Union St. or North Beach in San Francisco. At TechCrunch Disrupt, KurbKarma launched an iPhone app that could take the pain out of parking.
A user ready to vacate a parking spot publishes their spot to the app, which it locates it on a map and sends out the availability to the KurbKarma social network. Drivers circling the area can see the spots locally available, and send a request to take a spot. Drivers choose the lucky driver, and earn "KarmaKredits." Those taking the spots pay with the same currency. KurbKarma takes a $1 fee for each parking transaction.
The business opportunity could be significant. According to company co-founder Neha Sampat, San Francisco has about 400,000 parking spots, of which 50,000 are in high demand. The high-demand spots result in about 130 million parking exchanges per year. If KurbKarma attains just a small fraction of the exchanges, it could have a healthy business. The company plans to extend its social network to 25 cities, and claims its could generate $30 million per year in revenue for alleviating parking pain.
However, KurbKarma will need to move fast in building its social network across the nation and globe, or get acquired by a more mature social network, given the barrier to entry is l... [Read more]
via CNET http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cnet/NnTv/~3/Mni7bxv0b-I/
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