I don’t know how many of you have actually been to Moscow before or will go in the near future, but apparently getting a taxi in the Russian capital is a big problem. Waiting takes a long time, at least half an hour.
But there is a solution coming for that issue from a surprising corner: the search engine Yandex. Yandex launched Yandex.Taxi, intended to find taxi’s quickly and reduce the waiting time.
Yandex has made a deal with several Taxi service providers and will be looking at their cars and availability. Yandex.Taxi will then send a booking request to the car nearest to the client. Once confirmed “the client can track their taxi right on the city map.”.
There are now eleven taxi service providers working with Yandex, which mean you get to pick out of a 1000 cars.
Tigran Khudaverdyan, Head of Web Portal and Mobile Services at Yandex says:
“As the service will grow and add more partners, we expect to reduce waiting times to less than 15 minutes, which is comparable with what it takes to go out to a busy street and stop a gypsy cab. But, with the Yandex.Taxi service which partners only with the licensed taxi service providers, the client gets a reliable driver, a good car and a safe trip,”
So What!?
“So Yandex will be searching taxi’s for you. Who cares? We won’t be in Moscow soon and we don’t even know if this will work.”
Very true indeed this statement, but there is something about this which makes it interesting. It is a move from Yandex which probably will be followed by others pretty soon. Not the taxi in specific, but the ‘offline’ connection with other ‘channels’.
Find ability is not just going to be about SERPS, it is going to be about being visible where it matters. That can be in SERPS, but also within Social Media, within other online channels, or even offline. Yandex has even made an Android app available so you can start using it on your phone. They are looking outside of the existing boundaries.
And if you can connect the offline world with the online and be visible there you are on your way. In a taxi ride ;).