Hours apart, Lyft & Uber announce carpooling services

Last night, alternative cab service Uber unveiled UberPool, an option to let you share an Uber ride with another passenger. This morning, competitor Lyft announced a similar offering, dubbed Lyft Line.

Lyft Line will initially be available on iOS in San Francisco, according to a blog post today from the startup. Passengers in San Francisco can get a first ride free as long as the bill doesn’t exceed $25, according to a statement.

UberPool, for its part, is in private beta, according to Uber’s blog post on the new service, and people at Google are early adopters of the program.

Lyft had its roots in sharing rides, through the Zimride service. Lyft started as an experiment in 2012 after Zimride had operated for years, Lyft co-founder Logan Green has said. Then, last year, Lyft sold Zimride to car-rental company Enterprise.

Now that both Uber and Lyft have competing systems of this nature, neither is getting a head start, even if Lyft does have experience to speak of.

It’s worth adding that UberPool and Lyft Line seem a lot like a service from Corral Labs called Hitch. Recent promotions for Hitch could well have caught the attention of much better funded Uber and Lyft.