Thanks to a new deal with Spotify, Uber passengers will be able to tell drivers not just where they want to go but what they want to listen to on the way there.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick announced the partnership Monday along with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek.
“It’s the first time we’ve personalized the experience inside the car,” Kalanick said. “And for music lovers, that’s nirvana.”
Spotify users with paid subscriptions will be able to connect their accounts through the Uber app. Passengers can pick their playlist before the car even arrives and have music playing through the car’s speakers when it pulls up. The feature will roll out in ten cities on Friday: London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Nashville, New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney, and Toronto.
Ek said that on-demand cars are the way of the future, much like on-demand music through Spotify.
“Instead of just doing car integrations, we thought about ‘what is the next generation of transportation system?'” Ek said. “Uber is just such an obvious fit for us.” The pair declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal.
Getting Personal
Personalization is one aspect of Uber’s business that it has only begun to explore. Much as Amazon turns its knowledge of customers’ purchases into product recommendations that fuel more purchases, Uber’s record of where and when its users travel has potentially valuable applications. Knowing what music its customers like creates an even more complete profile.
Kalanick said Uber drivers are excited about the Spotify integration, but that they have the option not to enable it in their app, which they would have to link to their cars’ audio systems in order to work. He called the feature a “higher fidelity” version of asking the driver to tune in a particular station on the radio. When musical tastes clash, he said drivers aren’t out of luck:
“Somebody who comes in with death metal and wants it really loud, the driver has control of how loud that’s going to be.”
No comments:
Post a Comment