Just released new code. We spent a lot of time simplifying the UI while expanding the robustness of our quota and discount engines. That, combined with improvements to custom roles, means you can create just about any pricing scheme you can think of. Kick the tires. I’d love to hear what you think. Look for more in about 10 days.

evan and i stayed up late again (evan a bit later than me – he’s on vacation in new york) to roll out divvy’s latest round of features and tweaks. the main addition this time is a quota generator – lets you establish all sorts of time- and reservation-based quotas for different users and roles. used in conjunction with custom roles and with discounts, divvy can now handle more reservation scenarios than ever. there’s also a host of usability tweaks which will improve your (and your users’) experience. check it out and feel free to let me know what you think.

coming this next month: combined calendars, multiple calendar views, and affiliate items (so that you can create community chests of items with automatic revenue share).

mike mathieu, founder of walkscore.com, just sent me a link to a video, produced by the congress for the new urbanism, which reveals what the greatest threat to the planet is. curious? check it out! it struck me that as our architects and city planners work on more walkable, liveable, sustainable community designs, there will be an increased demand for efficient sharing systems. in other words, new urbanism and rentalism go hand-in-hand.

divvy is a tool that will allow these communities to hold more in common, making them even more green.

We recently launched DivvyCar.com and are excited about it! So what is divvy car? Let me explain.

Basically, Zipcar rocks for regular people who need a vehicle occasionally. But Zipcar kinda sucks for formal, closed communities. (I’m not crapping on Zipcar. I’m probably going to be a Zipcar customer in the next month so I’m glad they’re around.)

For example, the Cristalla condominium in Seattle wanted their own private Zipcar for their residents, but it was waaaaay expensive and the condo association was losing a ton of money each month. So instead they switched to using divvy to share their own private vehicle. This is an awesome feature for the residents (in addition to other benefits which I’ll mention soon) and ended up breaking even instead of being a major expense.

Having a private vehicle for employee or member use  is perfect for businesses, churches, coworking spaces, condos and anyone seeking LEED certification. (If you’re a developer, you can earn a point towards your LEED certification by providing a private community vehicle.)

With divvy car, your organization can take control and choose any vehicle you want (a truck, van, smart car, anything!), get your own insurance and gas card (we help you figure out how) and then set up the car on divvy for your community or coworkers to reserve.

If you’re interested in setting up your own divvy car, check out the site and let us know if we can be of any help to you.

Jenny

I enjoyed this post from Urban Observations on our desire to create community. Just wanted to share!

http://urbanobservations.com/2009/05/14/building-community/

We are constantly adding new features and we just released a bunch of new ones that I’m sure you’ll love! (I know I do.)

• We now have an advanced reservation builder for time-based and resource items. You can book multiple reservations for multiple items, all at once. For example, a church is using this to book out a room, the chairs, projector and kitchen for a class that occurs every week for a year. What used to take a loooooong time (seriously- upwards of 30 minutes) now takes just a few clicks and a few minutes.
• We made the list view prettier. There’s still some work to do, but we cleaned it up a bit.
• We’re faster! We made significant speed enhancements. (Side note- I test rode in a Tesla this weekend. AMAZING. Talk about speed!) If you’re checking available time for a reservation, if it’s available it goes straight to the cart instead of waiting for you to “add” it to the cart.
• We added years to the reservation builder so those of you that want to build out reservations into 2011 you can!
• We added a really amazing feature to add reoccurring reservations. Want to book out every Tuesday and Thursday for the next 7 weeks? SURE! Want to book only every 3rd wednesday for a year? Fine! Do it! It’s really robust- check it out!
• Plus we made all sorts of little improvements throughout the site. Because everything we do, we do it for you! If there’s any other features you’d like to see, just email us at aaron@ or jenny@ divvy.com

Aaron got an email today from Mike. You can check out Mike here.

Mike has a photography studio he’s co-opting with other photographers and wanted an online system.

Here’s an edited of Mike’s emails:

Hey Divvy Team

I was writing because I’ve spent the entire day poking around delicious, google, twitter, etc looking for time and space management tools. I think I’ve created about 14 different account on sites today that didn’t end up fitting what I was looking for.

I *finally* found Divvy and flipped out cause it’s exactly what I needed. I have a photography studio space that I’m co-opting and we wanted to allow other photographers in town to use it, if they needed more professional lights, or backdrops, so on… so Divvy looks like *the* best tool for this. Nothing else I’ve found has come even close.

I’m sold! I’m so excited about this site.

Anyway, I’m going to keep experimenting with the site. Cause, like I said, nothing else has even come close. Keep up the great work! The site is really, really useful. Thanks!

- mike

This afternoon I ran out to pick up a prescription and some groceries at Trader Joe’s and on my way home, I saw a woman at the bus stop hitchhiking. I flipped a bitch (aka, a u-turn) and picked her up because she was close to my mom’s age and I couldn’t stand the thought of some creepy guy picking her up instead. So she got in the car with relatively un-creepy me and we had a great conversation.

She was a stylist at Gene Juarez for 15 years, she just performed 16 hours of community service instead of paying a fine for not having a pet license for her cat, she plays her music too loud in her apartment, she’s had liposuction several times, and she just sold her car (a Mercedes SLK) and thought she could get by with the bus. She said for the most part she can, but a few days a month she needs to rent a car. She said she’d rather rely on her community of friends and people she knows, though, instead of paying a company.

So THAT interesting conversation happened (I love picking up hitchhikers. You hear the most interesting things about their life. I imagine it’s like what taxi drivers hear all day.) and then I got back to my email and Aaron and our friends at Scoville PR sent this article from the Washington Post.

My favorite part of the article:

“You can’t change the economy. You can’t change the recession. Maybe you can get a better job, but that won’t be instantaneous. What do you do?” she said. “Sharing is one of the things that first of all makes you feel better about yourself. . . . We’re moving into ‘How can we establish these kinds of personal connections, this helping others, sharing, being a bit more neighborly?’ “

Have you found yourself helping out your neighbors, friends and even strangers more these days? If you have any good stories, email me or  hit me up on twitter. jenny@divvy.com or iloveshoes or doyoudivvy on Twitter.

When I first heard about cohousing I assumed it was for weirdos- like people who wore clothing made of hemp, wanted to live in a commune, and were ‘one’ with nature. Or I assumed they were like retirement communities.

I was wrong.

First, there’s tons of cohousing communities across the country from Brooklyn to the islands off of Washington state. Typically these communities have 20-40 residences and the residents eat many meals together, take care of common resources, and have an emphasis on sustainability. From the cohousing.org site:

Cohousing communities are old-fashioned neighborhoods created with a little ingenuity. They bring together the value of private homes with the benefits of more sustainable living. That means common facilities and good connections with neighbors. All in all, they stand as innovative answers to today’s environmental and social problems.

In a cohousing community, you know who lives six houses down because you eat common meals with them, decide how to allocate homeowners dues and gratefully accept a ride from them when your car’s in the shop. You begin to trust them enough to leave your 4-year-old with them. You listen to what they have to say, even if you don’t agree with them at first, and you sense that you, too, are being heard.

I discovered there are 18 cohousing communities in Washington alone! I had no clue and one of them is right down the street from my house.

It’s one of those ideas that gives me the ‘warm-fuzzies’, ya know? I don’t know my neighbors and I live in a great neighborhood. If I needed help with something, I certainly wouldn’t go knocking on their doors and that’s kinda sad.

I started researching coworking spaces after Aaron mentioned them as being a great candidate for Divvy. These communities have to share common amenities (like the kitchen or common great room) and responsibilities (weeding the garden, fixing meals, watching kids, carpooling) and Divvy can help them schedule all of this.

So as I go about my work and check out these communities, I wanted to share the concept with you. If you live in a cohousing community, let me know. I’d like to learn more.

Jenny

Aaron wrote a “2-pager” for Divvy over the weekend and also created this Wordle- pretty cool looking, huh? (Click to see the closeup. I couldn’t figure out how to get it into the blog in a larger size….so if I do, I’ll update.)