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Uber has inspired countless new "on-demand" apps that promise to bring you what you want with just a tap of the screen. There's an Uber for dog walkers, There's an Uber for booze. There's even Uber for cops. Now email marketing company Constant Contact is ready to unleash a hoard of new on-demand apps thanks to a tool that promises to make it dead simple to build your own Uber-style service.
The SmallBusinessAPI is a web-based service that app developers can use to automatically send orders to local businesses. So far the service, now in beta, only includes dry cleaning businesses, but will be gradually opened to other types of businesses as well.
Constant Contact's chief innovation officer Andy Miller believes the API could eventually be used to create new services that enable users to order all sorts of things from a single app, not unlike Magic or Facebook's forthcoming M personal assistant. In other words, instead of a multitude of "Uber for X" apps, we might have our choice of several different "Uber for anything" apps.
A developer could use the SmallBusinessAPI to create an app that enables users to request a dry-cleaning pickup based on their current location. The app would bounce this request over to the SmallBusinessAPI, which would send it out to its network of nearby dry cleaners. The job goes to the first dry cleaner to respond. Alternately, the developer could use the API to get a list of all nearby dry cleaners, let the customer pick one in particular they want to use, and then send the request.
Most importantly, Miller says Constant Contact will help find new dry cleaners—and in the future, other kinds of businesses—to sign up for the service. Typically, new on-demand services have to build a network of local suppliers before releasing an app. That means most companies will roll out their service one city at a time. Miller says the company will begin by recruiting businesses from Constant Contact's existing 650,000 customers, many of which are small businesses.
The SmallBusinessAPI may seem like an odd thing to come out of an email marketing company, but Miller argues that it's really just another way for Constant Contact to help its customers market themselves. "Imagine that you're a dry cleaner and you're already using us to send out newsletters and coupons," he says. "They can just plug in to this to bring in this whole new channel to drive more business."
The project was created by Constant Contact's "Innovation Team," which is tasked with creating new products for the company. And while Miller admits that the team won't ever go as far into blue skies research as a company like Google, they're interested in finding new ways to help their customers drum up new business, and they're not limiting themselves to email. But there's only so far the company will stray. For example, Miller says the company is unlikely to use this technology to build its own "Uber for anything" app, even though it could obviously do so. "I think it would be a tough sell to say we're going to build a business that is so far afield from what we do today," he says.
The SmallBusinessAPI, which Miller says is the Innovation Team's most ambitious project yet, is far enough afield enough, at least for now. "I call it a moonshot," he says. "This is probably our self-driving car."
