Uber reveals the next phase in its quest for global domination — and it’s pretty damn cool

The scale of Uber’s ambitions became a little clearer this week as the company announced a new feature “Trip Experiences” for users who are riding in an Uber. According to tech blog The Verge, Trip Experiences “will allow third-party apps the ability to serve up notifications, content, or ads to its users during their trips.”

What does this mean? Essentially, customers in the backseat of an Uber become a captive audience during their ride. If they are looking for entertainment, they can be served some music, or some short viral videos; on a way to a meeting they can receive the latest financial indicators and up-to-the-minute business analysis. On their way home, they can adjust the thermostat in the house to the temperature that they want.

The call is out to developers to engage with Uber and create meaningful Experiences. Writing on its site, Uber offers this engaging prospect… “What if you could offer unique features in your app while users are on a trip with Uber? To make this possible, we provide a /request/current endpoint and all_trips scope.”

This gives developers great information to work with, such as how much free time in a car the user has, where they are in the city and where they are heading etc. With that information, “you can build innovative experiences to engage users while they’re on a trip with Uber.”

That’s a huge step for the company and a clear sign that it feels it’s on track with its basic business and looking to extend into being more of a lifestyle brand.

Trip Experiences is in line with Uber’s ambitions to grow into an indispensable part of the developing 21st Century sharing economy. Last March, the company announced that it was opening up its API to developers and encouraging companies to add a “Call Uber” button to their apps. Rather like a Facebook like button or a Tweet button, what this meant was that, for example, you could now summon an Uber from the Google Map you are looking at. or the restaurant review you are reading

Early reports have been largely positive about the Uber button. The Verge article shares that “Users kept coming back to apps with Uber buttons too. The average number of visits to the page with the Uber button on it increased up to 26% after a user engaged with the Uber button. And 21% of those users came back within 48 hours and used the feature to navigate to Uber again.”

And in December, Uber filed a patent for a service called Uber Travel, which will see it muscling in to the highly competitive travel and hospitality sector. The patent filing suggests that Uber will help its customers book cars to and from an airport, book a flight to a destination, send notifications when the plane has landed and even recommend accommodation options from both hotels and rental services like Airbnb.

Shuli Lowry, marketing director of Ping Travel explains how “Uber’s position as the go-to for car bookings can be leveraged to provide complete travel itineraries, providing added value to consumers. If successful, Uber Travel can introduce a massive new revenue stream to the company.”

Uber is going to great lengths to make sure it’s not accused of spamming its customers, or hijacking their mobile devices in any way. The company insists that users will maintain complete control of what they are accessing. “They will need to give permission before their favorite apps can connect to Uber and access their trip details,” the company says. “And users will be able to turn off the feature app by app at any point if it’s not useful.”