News: what's new and a word from the team

Dear Caroster user,

We are delighted to announce that Caroster Beta 5 is now available!

This major update has been made possible thanks to the investment of Octree (project leader) and your invaluable contributions and feedback.

Thank you for your loyalty and continued support. We hope these new features will further enhance your Caroster experience.

Good carpooling to all!

What's new?

🌐 Improved language management

- Emails are now specifically translated, eliminating the need for emails in two languages.

- Stay tuned for the upcoming launch of participatory translation. We'll be sharing more information soon!

🔔 Improved notifications

- Discover our brand-new in-app notifications system, designed to let you easily track notifications outside your e-mails.

👀 S earch one route per day

- It is now possible to filter trips by departure date, making it easier to find a trip.

✨ Caroster Plus

- Caroster is now able to adapt to the needs of major events thanks to a new option.

- Please note that this is a pay-as-you-go option, with all proceeds going directly to funding Caroster.

A word from the team

We'd like to bring you closer to the Caroster project by explaining its progress, a first attempt with this post from Caroster's product manager, Xavier von Aarburg.

Dear users, this new version of Caroster marks a turning point in the project. Since its launch in 2020, Caroster has tripled the number of events created each year, and more and more of you are contacting us for advice or to request features.

So it's you who are pushing us to go one step further and enter the crucial phase of sustaining the project. Indeed, financial support from the City of Geneva enabled us to experiment with our idea and make it concrete, but today it's us, the Octree team, who are carrying the project alone and investing in it to improve it. This is a temporary situation that needs to be resolved, as Caroster is open source, but above all has the mission of becoming a true digital commons at the service of event mobility.

To do this, we need to succeed in projecting the project over the long term, and one of the keys is to achieve project viability and the creation of a community of users and contributors.

As far as finances are concerned, this latest version is key, as it introduces a pay-as-you-go option for large events, providing the functionality required when organizing carpools of over 100 people who don't know each other. This revenue will be used to cover development, maintenance and promotion costs. The Caroster Pro service offering is also well on target, and any developments for customized installations will enable us to benefit the main project. Two promising hypotheses that strike the right balance between a service that's as free as possible and the financial need to pay the people working on it.

As far as contributions are concerned, last year we had the pleasure of having our first code contributors offering to resolve minor bugs, as well as the first translations since the implementation of our Weblate, a fine signal. On this second part of the application localization, one major point was blocking us, and that was the translation of e-mails. We had to overhaul the entire sending and design system, and now we've done it: the entire application is translatable, which means we can now move ahead with the creation of a community of contributors and translators.

This is a huge milestone for us, and the prospects for 2024 are pleasing and exciting. We look forward to sharing more information with you in the coming weeks!

- Xavier for Caroster