New Facebook carpooling app launches

(2010 Facebook)

A new Facebook application that allows users to search for car share partners using Facebook in Europe launched November 16.

The new Facebook application, called "Envoiture.fr" or "Rideshare.co.uk" in English, allows Facebook members to easily share trips using the social networking site.

Users can see the journeys their friends are making and decide to join them, as well as view other carshares available on Envoiture.fr's website and check whether users are friends or neighbors.

Although Envoiture.fr certainly isn't the first Facebook car sharing app, it's likely to be one of the biggest - the site claims that it holds more than 350,000 trips from 1.4 million registered users in Europe.

The site and app are available in Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Poland, and Switzerland, with a Spanish service coming soon.

With a larger user base, the site could find itself more popular than other efforts to bring carpooling to the far-reaching social networking site - Peugeot attempted something similar in 2008 when it launched its EcoSharing Facebook app.

However, the idea never took off and today the app boasts only 17 monthly active users, according to Facebook's current statistics.

http://apps.facebook.com/envoiture_fr/