Short-form video content a la TikTok is taking over social media apps.
And soon, you’ll even find it on Uber Eats.
The food delivery platform is launching a new feature that will allow app users to scroll through a feed of food videos from nearby restaurants, Uber Eats confirmed to Business Insider.
TechCrunch first reported the new feature Monday in an exclusive interview with Uber Eats senior product manager Awaneesh Verma.
The video clips, which merchants will be able to provide to Uber Eats, will appear in a feed on the app’s home screen as well as in carousels throughout the app, Uber Eats said.
“This new short-form video stream, designed to showcase dishes from top retailers, allows them to attract new consumers and tell a visual story of their meals, which is currently not available on other delivery platforms ” said an Uber spokesperson. Eats told Business Insider.
And just like on TikTok, a hungry user will be able to scroll through a series of vertical clips showing a variety of dishes prepared at restaurants hand-picked by the Uber Eats team. If the user likes what they see, they can order that dish, or similar dishes, directly from the video screen.
“Early data shows that people are much more confident when trying new dishes and things they might not otherwise have done,” Verma told TechCrunch. “Even small things, like being able to see the texture and details of a serving size or the contents of a dish, have been really inspiring for our users.”
And because the videos aren’t ads, Uber Eats won’t charge restaurants to display them in the app, the company said.
The new feature is currently only being tested in New York, San Francisco and Toronto, but the company plans to roll it out to more cities, the spokesperson told BI.
Uber Eats is just the latest company to jump into the short-form video content craze, following the success of TikTok.
Instagram first launched Reels in 2020, a move that was widely seen as a way to keep up with its main competitor, TikTok. And in the years since, Meta has made a number of changes to Facebook and Instagram to make the apps work a little more like TikTok.
Following the success of TikTok, YouTube also created its own TikTok clone, called YouTube Shorts, which exceeded 50 billion daily views in early 2023.
businessinsider
