The curious case of the delivery drones

The PR Group for Zookal:

Zookal, Australia’s leading student services platform and textbook rental service, has partnered with commercial drone service Flirtey to provide a unique parcel delivery solution to support its textbook dispatch. The partnership marks the first use of fully automated commercial drones in the world.

That’s a very bold claim to make, and they got a lot of media attention for it, but not everyone was convinced. Renai LeMay at Delimiter was extremely skeptical of the veracity of these remarks, and followed up with Zookal (the textbook rental service), Flirtey (the drone company) & their PR in a lengthy chat:

Without going into the specifics of the conversation, unfortunately, they were unable to satisfactorily answer our questions about the company and its plans. With this in mind, Delimiter recommends readers approach this story with caution.

It’s a story that sounds great (flying parcels! the future! disruption!) but I also think it’s very premature. Check back on this when they’ve actually delivered on their promises, or as Renai pointed out, a textbook to a front door.