The partnership between Uber and Spotify was first revealed by The New York Times on Friday. The official news are set to be announced later today, during a press call that will be hosted by Uber chief excutive Travis Kalanick and a “special guest partner,” according to invites sent out by Uber’s public relations team, The Hollywood Reporter notes. According to TechCrunch, the special guest might be someone from Spotify, which has both the global footprint and user base to make such an integration successful. This partnership means that Uber customers will be able to play DJ while taking a ride with one of its drivers by accessing Spotify’s streaming service. How exactly that will happen is still a bit unclear.
A French video posted on Vimeo 10 months ago appears to describe this service, which suggests that Spotify and Uber might have been experimenting for quite some time.
TechCrunch also obtained a couple of screenshots showing how the service will likely work. In the first screenshot, which began showing up on its driver app over the last few days, Uber has begun asking drivers to update their car information and select whether or not it has an AUX audio input. By connecting their Uber-provided mobile phone to the car stereo, the service could soon allow users to control the music during the ride and possibly play from their own playlists. The second screenshot shows a mockup of what it will look like for passengers as they select and listen to music while in transit. The user interface shows the song title and artist of the music being played, and enables users to pause, skip, rewind, and choose to shuffle tracks in a playlist.
Why This Is A Win For Both Spotify & Uber. There’s nothing game changing in this partnership but it does have real benefits for both companies. A partnership with Uber would be quite profitable for Spotify as it competes with the likes of Pandora, Deezer, Rhapsody, and even giants like Apple and Amazon in the streaming music space. The announcement also comes as Spotify is dealing with Taylor Swift, who recently said she is pulling all her music off the streaming service over ethical issues. As for Uber, which offers its services in nearly 50 countries, the partnership is a way to offer a more personalized and pleasant ride to passengers and thus compete against Lyft, another popular ride-hailing start-up fighting for control of the transportation industry.