Facebook's partnership with Uber means you can now hail a ride from within Messenger

midian182

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Facebook has announced that it has formed a partnership with Uber to bring the ride-hailing company’s service to the Messenger app. At the moment, the feature is being tested with some users, but it will soon be available to those located in US cities with Uber services.

The new feature can be found in Messenger by clicking on the car icon or selecting the transportation option in the ‘more’ menu – represented by an ellipsis symbol. It’s also possible to click on an address from within Messenger to bring up a box that says “Request a ride," that will take you to a screen where you can add your pick up location, destination, and car type.

Anyone who uses the service can track and pay for their ride all within Messenger, meaning you don’t have to download the Uber app. You will need a Uber account, though, which you can create within Messenger.

As an incentive to use the service, everyone who uses the new Messenger transportation feature will get a free ride from Uber with a value of $20 or less. This perk will only be valid during the limited promotional period.

Uber is also planning to use Messenger as real-time customer support service. “We will start testing live support through Messenger to find out if this is the best way to start using real-time support through this,” Uber’s head of API and strategic partnerships Rahul Bijor said.

Messenger transportation only works with Uber right now, but Facebook said more services are on the way. The social network is reportedly in talks to make the feature work with ride-sharing service Lyft starting in January, according to a person familiar with the matter.

There’s no official date for when the feature will roll out to everyone, but an Uber spokesperson told TechCrunch it will most likely be available to US Messenger users by Christmas.

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Great. It will come here too soon enough. Their "generous offer" will not encourage me to to reopen a FB account though, I'd rather download the Uber app and pay full price.
That being said, I like the concept of Uber and know people who use them although I never have, I own a few vehicles and I'd rather drive myself but with traffic the way it is nowadays I'm starting to think otherwise. Roll on autonomous electric vehicles.
 
I think this is good. Any person going about the same direction, and a little time, can be a Uber driver. The good thing about it is that the overall service could be more like a car-pooling service than a taxi-hailing service. The more people doing it, the more efficient it gets, both time and fuel wise.
 
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