We have social networks for just about everything these days. If there’s one for dogs and cats, why not for cars?
Berkeley, California based Boompa is just that – a new web startup focused on car fanatics (and better yet, it isn’t ridiculous). The founders, Ethan Lance and Dave Snider, previously worked together at CNET before starting this company.
Users enter information on cars they own, or want to own. Other users can tag and comment the vehicle, and contact the owner and/or add him or her as a friend. The site is extremely well designed and uses Ajax effectively throughout. The fact that just the two founders built the site in a few months is impressive.
The founders have another, rather ambitious goal as well – to create the definitive database of car information on the web, called their Database Project:
The Boompa Database Project is an initiative started by the founders of this site in co-operation with the boompa community to build an enterprise level vehicle database that will be freely distributed back to the community through a developer API feed under a Creative Commons license. The current target for completion of the API is late Summer 2006.
They also took the time to document the process of starting the company and creating the product. Like Riya founder Munjal Shah’s posts on his experience with the Riya launch, this is a must read for every entrepreneur.
