Private car service provider GroundLink added an Android app to its mobile arsenal, and claimed an industry first. The Android app, which supplements GroundLink’s existing iPhone app,  enables consumers to reserve private cars around the world or order them on-demand in New York City, where the company operates its own fleet. GroundLink says both apps’ GPS technology enable users to track the location of the car on a map and provides the projected arrival time as customers wait to get picked up. Users can select Ride Now to get a car dispatched immediately or Ride Later to make a reservation for a later time, GroundLink says. “GroundLink can deliver a car within hours to passengers anywhere in the world,” the company says. GroundLink claimed yesterday that much of this is a first. The company stated: GroundLink, the first global private car service, today announced the launch of the first mobile app Read More

TechCrunch readers may be familiar with Uber, the on-demand cab/private car service that lets users bypass the annoying process of waiting for cabs or expensive prospect of renting a limo — all via your mobile device and SMS. Today, a car service is launching a new feature in New York City that it hopes will ride on the growing popularity of Uber as well as on-demand mobile reservation and food delivery services like OpenTable or Seamless to make getting a private car even easier. (Because apparently nobody likes ordering over the phone anymore.) GroundLink, the New York City-based car service that was founded in 2003 as an aggregator and solutions provider to the ground travel industry, is going mobile today to enable users to book a private car whenever they want — either immediately or at a scheduled time — via their smartphone on iOS and Android. With its new on-demand Read More