Uber has acquired Swipe Labs—an social app development firm once touted as a Snapchat rival.

Joining, partly

Swipe Labs CEO Marwan Roushdy announced the move via Medium.

Terms of the acquisition are as-yet unknown. Roushdy’s post says that ‘a portion of the [Swipe Labs] team will be joining Uber’. The futures of the remaining portion is unknown.

Still ride-share

Despite this purchase, Uber’s seems set to continue to focus on ride-share. TechCrunch experts infer that this acquisition is all about Uber acquiring pre-packed UXD expertise. Making life easier for Uber drivers seems the likely end-game.

Indeed, Roushdy hinted as much, saying that Swipe Labs will look ‘to use what we learned over the years and apply it at a very large scale to over a million people that drive for Uber every day.’

Eastern announcements

Uber has also announced a partnership with Russian internet giant Yandex. Uber will take control of a third of Yandex as part of the deal, and the pair are also teaming up to create a new venture to deliver Rides and Eats in Russia and five other former Soviet states.

Despite being announced around the same time, Uber’s plays for Swipe Labs and Yandex are yet to be strategically linked.

If Uber launched its own social platform, what would you call it?

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