Skip to main content

Introducing Dadnab

I have been working on my own venture for about year. In the middle of 2006, I began recruiting beta testers for the new service. The service is now out of beta.

Dadnab enables riders of mass transit (bus, rail, etc.) to plan their trips using text messaging from their mobile phones. A rider sends a text message with her origin and destination, and Dadnab replies to the message with an itinerary telling which buses or trains to take, at which stops, and at what times.

The service is currently available in Austin, Boston, Dallas, and Houston, with many more cities in the works.

Below is a demo, in the form of a web widget, of the +Dadnab service:





Try Dadnab now.

Comments and suggestions about the service are welcome. Please feel free to try it from your mobile phone (see the web site for instructions), and don't hesitate to spread the word.

UPDATE: To learn how to include the Dadnab widget on your blog or other web page, see my next entry.
UPDATE: Chicago Dadnab is now operational.
UPDATE: Seattle Dadnab is now operational.
UPDATE: Tri-State Dadnab is now operational. It covers New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
UPDATE: Bay Area Dadnab is now operational. It covers the San Francisco Bay Area.
UPDATE: Portland Dadnab is now operational.
UPDATE: Southern California Dadnab is now operational.

Comments

Jeff Key said…
Bravo! Please include Chicago, as we have a very healthy public transit ridership. (Can't always say the same about the service, but we're used to it.)
rcauvin said…
Thanks, Jeff. Your timing is impeccable, as Chicago is the next city that Dadnab will support. Look for it to be available before February.
tmycann said…
Any thoughts on Washington, DC or Milwaukee joining the list of cities any time soon?
Roger L. Cauvin said…
Washington, DC is in the plans but as of yet there is no projected date.

Popular posts from this blog

Why Spreadsheets Suck for Prioritizing

The Goal As a company executive, you want confidence that your product team (which includes all the people, from all departments, responsible for product success) has a sound basis for deciding which items are on the product roadmap. You also want confidence the team is prioritizing the items in a smart way. What Should We Prioritize? The items the team prioritizes could be features, user stories, epics, market problems, themes, or experiments. Melissa Perri  makes an excellent case for a " problem roadmap ", and, in general, I recommend focusing on the latter types of items. However, the topic of what types of items you should prioritize - and in what situations - is interesting and important but beyond the scope of this blog entry. A Sad but Familiar Story If there is significant controversy about priorities, then almost inevitably, a product manager or other member of the team decides to put together The Spreadsheet. I've done it. Some of the mos

Is Customer Development Pseudoscience?

The “Science” of Lean Startup Lean startup practitioners embrace the scientific method, seeking the "truth" about what business model and strategy will lead to product success. We do so by: Formulating hypotheses Crafting and running experiments to test them Learning from the experiments Iteratively feeding our learnings back into revised hypotheses Sounds pretty scientific, at least in spirit, doesn't it? Yet this process actually neglects a key ingredient in the scientists' mode of operation. To identify what’s missing, let’s examine “customer development”. Customer Development Steve Blank is one of the pioneers of the lean startup movement. He introduced into the lean startup lexicon the term “customer development”. Customer development consists of sessions and interactions with customers to test hypotheses. For example, a product manager might interview a prospect, asking if she agrees with the product manager’s hypotheses about the problem

Interaction Design: the Neglected Skill

Your product development organization has a big, gaping hole in it. (Be prepared to feel defensive as you continue reading.) One of the most important roles in product development is the role of interaction designer. An interaction designer designs how the users will interact with the product and conceptualize the tasks they perform. He decides whether, for example, the user interface will be command driven, object oriented (clicking on objects then specifying what to do with them), or wizard based. The interaction designer decides the individual steps in the use cases. Every company has one or more people that play the interaction designer role. Usually, those people have little or no expertise in interaction design. Sadly, they typically don't even realize how unqualified they are. Let's see who typically plays the role at companies. Engineer . An engineer is an expert on building what is designed. Yes, an engineer may know how to design the internal structure of the hardware