Forcabdrivers.com
Facebook effect inspires Silicon Valley cabbie
( Source: San Jose Mercury News )
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Then one day, he picked up a Japanese documentary crew headed from the airport to Palo Alto to produce a feature on a startup long since forgotten. The Japanese visitors started talking about Facebook and Taye mentioned that Facebook was not that far from where they were headed. Let's go, Taye's passengers suggested.
"I showed them the entrance," he says. "They took pictures of the sign and me, their new cabdriver friend."
And it hit him: Cabdrivers needed a digital place to build community; a go-to site that could help with work and life; a place that cabdrivers would feel so much a part of, that they might want to take pictures of it some day.
"The idea came to me," Taye explains. "We are not connected. We don't know what's going on on the other side of the nation. If we could come up with a website whereby all cabdrivers can get together and exchange information and ideas, that would be a perfect thing to do."
So, he enrolled in an online Web design course. He started jotting down ideas for the site while waiting his turn to pick up airport passengers. He used Google to find oDesk, which he used to find a Web designer in Portland, Ore., to help with his site. He enlisted a local app maker to advise him on technology.
Now, 14 months after the Facebook trip, he's launched Forcabdrivers.com. It's a soft launch. Taye has cabdriver buddies and others checking the site out, sending along ideas. He knows he has work to do and he has no illusions of building some hugely popular or profitable site.
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http://www.mercurynews.com/mike-cassidy/ci_21644782/cassidy-facebook-effect-inspires-silicon-valley-cabbie
