Partnerships make the world better (more to come on that topic to come). Ideally, two services or technologies can join forces to take advantage of benefits on both sides to make the experience more fluid and enjoyable for users. These are 5 partnerships I’d like to see happen.

1.  + 

Uber is the easiest (and now cheapest) form of transportation around San Francisco. Although OpenTable can be spotty with reservations, it’s generally the most convenient way to make dinner reservations.

How great would it be if, before your dinner reservation, an Uber car were automatically ordered for you? The service would of course be optional, but the system would know whether or not you are within walking or if you need 15 minutes to travel to the restaurant. It would be a great peace of mind to see these two pair.

2.   +

JetBlue, or any other airline with individual screens, has a prime opportunity for a partnership with Netflix. JetBlue has a partnership with DirecTV that makes the ride much more enjoyable for passengers who can watch select channels free of charge. But these airlines still charge anywhere from $5-$10 for movies or TV shows.

The economics of this are simple. Netflix charges $7.99 for a basic package. Ignoring the likely discount Netflix would offer, and technical logistics of supporting a full library of offerings on board, the airlines could attract substantially more customers by offering the service. They would recoup their cost on each seat within 1 flight without having to charge (or baking in the extra ~$5 into the cost of a ticket). It’s a no brainer and would make someone who takes transcontinental flights as often as I do much happier.

3.  +

Jelly is a forum for asking open-ended questions and receiving quick, witty responses with doodles in tow. Policy Mic is a new-age Huffington Post with a policy slant; both writers and viewers are encouraged to express their opinions and engage in debate. The two platforms have similar end goals, and it would be great to spark more dialogue in response some of the questions asked on Jelly. Policy Mic would benefit from the rapid, media-forward call-and-response from Jelly.

A partnership between these two would be both one of distribution and one of engagement, since I believe there is a potential for overlap among parties interested in both services.

4.  +

Pay by Phone is among the worst user experiences I have had the misfortune of experiencing. The app is slow. The app is buggy. The app is faulty. And worst of all, the UI involves several screens and user inputs before the payment is processed. Without delving into the deluge of changes the app should make in their own right, it would be beautiful to see them partner with a payments app like Venmo, Dwolla, or any of the other available options. In fact, a partnership like this would not necessarily be mutually exclusive.

It would be much easier to embed Pay by Phone’s services into one of these apps, so if you decide to Venmo money to the ID on the parking meter, that would serve as the same form of payment. Alternatively, embedding part of the payments UIs from one of these apps into Pay by Phone to make the process less cumbersome would be a dream to the average consumer of parking meters.

5.   +

I’d love to see Vine and newcomer Frontback team up, because who wouldn’t love two simultaneous 6-second videos?