Facebook announced on Wednesday Dec. 16 a first-time partnership with the ride-hailing service Uber to allow U.S. users to summon a vehicle from within Facebook's Messenger smartphone app. This is a significant move for both companies since they are expanding aggressively beyond their core markets.

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The world's largest social network Facebook has recently begun to emulate its Asian rivals. Its Messenger service with more 700 million users is becoming more of an all-purpose platform. The dominant Chinese chat app WeChat, one of the popular Asian services, has become like a digital Swiss Army knives that allows users to hail a car, buy virtual stickers to be sent to friends, shop for games, and even shop for physical goods.

Uber will be first introduced in the United States and only in cities that have the service. The international expansion is planned for later. This will capitalize on hundreds of millions of users in the service on Facebook's Messenger app.

Vice President for Facebook messaging products, David Marcus, said there are a lot of plans in the making to benefit friends and family activities through Messenger. A need to request transportation brings a lot of utility to the platform, which adds more ride-hailing companies in the coming months.

Developers are allowed in March to write small apps that can be included in Messenger. Most of them are variations on emojis and selfies. Using Messenger, a handful of retailers and other companies are providing customer service.

A payment service is introduced in the Messenger to allow users send money to one another via debit cards but not to make purchases. A concierge service M is also tested in the Messenger to blend humans and computer algorithms in order to respond to service requests.

Facebook will be updating its app over the next few days so that existing Uber users can connect right away to Messenger using their accounts and request rides from inside conversations, while new users can sign up for Uber from within Messenger. The first ride that is up to $20 will be free for each customer as an incentive for ordering an Uber car.

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