According to a report from Recode, Mark Zuckerberg met with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick to discuss putting an Uber integration within Facebook’s Messenger app. Someday soon we could order a car in between sending our Facebook friends weird cat stickers.
If the deal does come together, it would give Messenger a feature none of the other messaging apps currently possess and give Uber access to potentially 200 million customers that use Facebook’s mobile messaging app a month.
Plus, turning Messenger into a way to buy fancy taxis would help justify the app’s existence reason for existing. Okay, I concede that Messenger is more convenient to use than going into the main Facebook app and pressing the Inbox button. But that convenience is neutralized by frustration of having two separate apps to get the normal Facebook experience.
No one at either company has confirmed the eventuality of this partnership, but inside sources claim to Re/code that it’s still conceptual at this point. Still, the idea behind this is pretty solid. In markets where Uber is popular, like New York, customers use it several times a week. With such frequency of use, Facebook is hopeful integration would mean more people would use Messenger more often.
It’s not clear what kind of advantage people would get from ordering an Uber within Messenger instead of opening the Uber app. I would probably delete the Uber app if all of a sudden I could order Uber via Facebook. UNLESS the Uber app allowed me to chat with my Facebook friends. Then my head would explode.
Another reason Uber might hesitate during talks: A deal with Facebook could strain the relationship between Uber and Google. Google recently invested $258 million into Uber, and already has a Maps integration with the car service. If Uber goes for a deal with Facebook over, say, integrating with Google+, it might create tension. But it would also show common sense because no one will ever use Google+ to order anything.
All that being said, the partnership would be pretty sweet for Uber, too, who would receive sudden exposure to a much wider customer base. Facebook Messenger currently has 200 million monthly users. Read more about the story here.
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