Looks like not everyone is embracing the vision behind Corral Rides, which aims to bring all of your transportation options togethers in one place — cabs, ridesharing, mass transit, and more.
A reader tipped us off that Lyft, which was one of the main services in the app, has been removed at the company’s request. (Apparently this actually happened several weeks ago, but I thought it was interesting enough to report, even if a bit late.) A Lyft spokesperson offered this explanation: “To maintain the integrity of the Lyft community and experience, it is our policy not to work with third-party aggregators.”
When we first covered Corral Rides, we noted that the app got access to the driver data from Uber, Lyft, and SideCar without the companies’ permission — Corral Rides co-founder Noam Szpiro told us, “The way we see it though, we’re just sending them free traffic and customers. If they want to be the option not listed, that’s up to them.” (Also, apparently the current app is only part of the company’s larger vision.)
When I emailed Szpiro’s co-founder Snir Kodesh to ask about the situation with Lyft, he said, “Their main concern was that we don’t provide the culture value-prop (they want to be identified as a ‘friend with a car’ service, rather than just an A-to-B transporter), which is clearly difficult to quantify with words/images.” He said he’s “trying to work with them to brainstorm solutions on how to bring them back to the app.”
Corral no longer has access to Uber driver data either, but Kodesh argued that there’s plenty of information in the app. If you’re looking for a car service, there’s still InstantCab and SideCar. And Uber hasn’t been removed entirely. The app no longer shows driver availability — but it does provide Uber pricing estimates. And it still shows information on mass transit, driving, biking, and walking.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/cO-UFYGDFOQ/
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