Have you seen pink mustaches placed on a car? Well if you have that is because of Lyft. Lyft is a peer to peer transportation company based in San Francisco, CA and launched in June of 2012. They match drivers in a community with passengers that are heading towards the same destination. Their service is along the lines of other collaborative consumption businesses that have taken off especially with the wide spread use of Facebook. Airbnb is the most successful company using this model.
Zimride the owners of Lyft are not the first to offer this type of service, but I think they are very innovative in how they are promoting the business as well as the way they are operating the business. It is different from similar offerings by Getaround, Ridejoy, and RelayRides in that it is mostly mobile focused. It provides a real time mobile car sharing assistance. I also think that their marketing of the company with the pink mustache is innovative.
The company makes money from each transportation that occurs. Lyft will get a percentage of the money that goes to the driver. As long as the company continues to grow to different cities and the word spreads about the company.
The company doesn’t present a unique business, but they are offering the best service. Lyft is offering real time ride sharing, which I don’t think is being offered by other companies. They are also inspecting each driver’s vehicle, doing background and dmv record checks for drivers. As well as providing a rating for both drivers and passengers to build trust. Both drivers and passengers must also have their Facebook and credit cards on file, which is another factor increasing trust.
I think the future of the business looks very well. I believe they are in the process of opening new operations in different cities around the country. They will have a lot of competition from companies who will offer similar service but they are ahead for now and it will be difficult for others to catch up.
The insight that I gain from this company is that it is important to keep up with technology and to think about how this new technology can improve upon current business models.
I think I will be copping a new phone when the Iphone 5 comes out in early October. There have been significant improvements over my current phone the 4. The new phone is slimmer and thinner, has an extra speaker, and a lot faster.
Under pressure from motion picture associations and recording industry association Google has appeased their demand for Google to negatively impact the search engine results for sites that have incurred copyright violations. This move can go a long way to lowering the websites that promote copyright infringement and allowing searchers to find legitimate, copyright authorized websites for entertainment purposes. I see this as a good step to fighting copy right infringement on the web.
As I had mentioned pre-IPO, I was not too impressed by Facebook’s prospect in the market, and a month after IPO facebook is down about 25%. There is a recent article out at the Washington Journal detailing the decline in growth for Facebook, which is about the same idea running through my head and why the company lost favor with me. It is worth a read if you have any interest in the internet giant. According to Comscore data the U.S. unique visitors to the website increased to 158 million for the month of April (only a 5% from April 2011). This is a rather minimal increase in unique visitors for a company with valuation of 100 times earnings. My suggestion for anyone considering this stock is to tread lightly. Upsides are fairly limited while downside is huge. Unless Facebook continues to reinvent the social medium, the stock will be under a lot of pressure.
Great song on youtube from my favorite TV show Game of Thrones. “Damn it feels good to be a Lannister,” which is a song with instrumentals from “Damn it feels good to be a Gangster.”
The biggest IPO in the United States history will be taking place in two days. Facebook is expected to price at a valuation at 75 billion but expectations are that it will reach 90 to 100 billion. However Facebook only had revenues of 4 billion last year and a net of 1 Billion. However popular Facebook is, it will have issues with monetizing it’s users and I for one am not buying into the hype.
In other news GM just announced that they will stop advertising with Facebook and commented that they have found advertising on Facebook didn’t have a good return on their investment.
Here is a video provided by Yelp explaining how and why Yelp filters some reviews. Many people have been pissed with the way Yelp is filtering bad and good reviews. The video is basically a propaganda about why they are filtering reviews doesn’t provide any details as to how the process works, probably for good reason too. This way spammers (fake reviews) will be kept in the dark just a while longer. Overall the filter process is working pretty good and Yelp is the best online review site so kudos to them. While many are frustrated over having legit reviews filtered, as long as the process is arithmetically based without any biased towards advertisers I think the system is just fine.
Travel deal sites have advanced tremendously since the heyday of the web. Online flight deal sites have made it really easy for consumers to get the best price for any flight plans for travel or business. Here is the list of the TOP 10 Flight Deal sites.
Great America is an amusement park located in Santa Clara, California, USA. Great America is one of four major amusement parks that operate around the San Francisco Bay Area, the other three being Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, and Gilroy Gardens in Gilroy. California’s Great America is the only theme park in northern California that has a water park in it, although there are several other dedicated water parks in the area, including Raging Waters in San Jose and Waterworld in Concord.
Below are some Coupons for Great America in Santa Clara:
DPRINC
The Park is currently closed for the 2011 season, however you can buy season pass for 2012 season for $54.99 .
