US based ride hailing service Lyft has now opened up its API (application program interface) to build on its platform, beginning with Facebook messenger.
At present, this service is available for people living in cities such as Austin, New York, San Francisco and Washington DC. With its partnership with Facebook, the users of Messenger can now order a ride through the Lyft app.
Facebook messenger has been the lead partner for Lyft, but now anybody who wants to develop and integrate it with any other app or create an entirely new app can do so by downloading the programming toolkit.
This new feature will be available throughout the US in the next week.
At this point of time, Lyft has not announced any other third party developer except for Facebook Messenger.
Lyft said that it is working with thousands of developers at various stages on the platform. The main focus is on messaging, transit and international travel.
Lyft wants to integrate a cab ordering service into various messenger apps. Thus, a user chatting with someone will not have to open the app separately and order a cab. Instead, he could order it through the messenger itself.
With transit apps, one could look at the availability of options, compare the cost of those options and choose the best one.
For international apps, the same Lyft app can be used when travelling to India, China and other Southeast Asian countries and book cab. This can be vice versa as well.
The company has already struck ride exchange partnership with Chinese Didi kauadi and India’s Ola.
Vishay Nihlani, the product manager at Lyft looks to develop the app to a transportation platform.
Lyft is working with Didi and Ola to integrate ride exchanges and to make many more partnerships functional using Lyfit API.
Nihalani said: "The goal is to make Lyft ubiquitous across a constellation of apps and services and to provide our passengers with access to transportation wherever our passengers are."
