Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
(Reuters) – Lyft Inc was valued at $24.3 billion in the first initial public offering (IPO) of a ride-hailing startup on Thursday, raising more than it had set off to do as investors overlooked uncertainty over its path to becoming a profitable company. Lyft’s IPO sets the stage for the stock market debut of…
The authenticity of the following anonymous op-ed has been verified by Medium’s editorial staff. I am an Uber employee and I support the drivers’ strikes. The strikes called on Monday by Rideshare Drivers United (RDU) in Southern California and Gig Workers Rising in San Francisco are a sign of the deep frustration many ride-share drivers…
Mitchell Grafton, Updating Vermeer. 2012 We are at the end of an era characterized by the self-portrait. This claim is not provocative—we’ve lived as characters for some time and have all felt it coming. So let me rephrase, we live at the end of an era characterized by relentless anxiety around the self as…
This article originally appeared on VICE UK. Every single and lonely millennial is on at least two dating apps. Without them, it would be impossible to meet someone at a Time Out-approved Bavarian beer hall pop-up and split an Uber home for profoundly disappointing sex. The amount of rutting you can actually get done off…
Photo: Richard Drew (AP) MoviePass, the ticketing startup that burned through hundreds of millions of dollars trying to undercut the theater business by selling tickets at cost to subscribers, has screwed up an awful lot as of late. Its parent company Helios & Matheson is being sued by shareholders for alleged fraud, as well as…
If it seems as though the app you deleted last week is suddenly popping up everywhere, it may not be mere coincidence. Companies that cater to app makers have found ways to game both iOS and Android, enabling them to figure out which users have uninstalled a given piece of software lately—and making it easy…
It’s no secret that mobile ad fraud is a m assive problem. Less clear are the specific channels and brands being impacted, and to what degree. This past week, the ad fraud specialists at Pixalate helped me see this space with a bit more precision: For example, the firm finds that unfiltered invalid traffic (IVT)…
oday Snapchat finally gets a true developer platform, confirming TechCrunch’s scoop from last month about Snap Kit. This set of APIs lets other apps piggyback on Snap’s login for sign up, build Bitmoji avatars into their keyboards, display public Our Stories and Snap Map content, and generate branded stickers with referral links users can share back inside…
Uber said it may soon know if customers are drunk — even before they get picked up. The ride-hailing company said in a recent patent application that it has come up with a way to tell “the state of the user” by analyzing a number of factors. The patent imagines a world where you might…
Apple Inc. this week took more jabs at Facebook Inc. over its privacy practices. But this time the iPhone maker went one step further, signaling it plans to encroach on the social-media company’s turf. As it touted its newest operating software for the mobile devices on Monday, Apple unveiled forthcoming features that collectively bear the…