A profile of Uber chief brand officer Bozoma Saint John. It’s a human element that Uber has been lacking. Source: Meet the woman washing the grime off Uber
Month: October 2017
Allowing prices to float, so that drivers — or anyone offering services — can differentiate based on price, opens the door to a richer on-demand economy. Research is beginning to support that position. … a working paper by UC Irvine Merage’s Jiaru Bai and Kut C. So, UCLA Anderson’s Christopher Tang, Xiqun (Michael) Chen of […]
Seattle is considering relaxing restrictions on selling access to excess parking capacity in buildings in the city. Seattle planners recently proposed has two standout offerings. The first is way in the weeds. It would fix a technical glitch in the city’s off-street parking exemption for housing located near transit. The second taps into a big […]
Shop in, don’t go out. The new consumer mantra. The Issaquah, Wash.-based grocery giant this week rolled out a new two-day delivery service called CostcoGrocery for customers across the U.S., with the exception of those in Alaska, Hawaii, or Puerto Rico. The service offers delivery of non-perishable food and sundries. A $3 delivery fee is […]
Take babysitting, add a distributed marketplace, and you’ve got $40-million in venture capital. An intriguing element of community based on reputation builds on UrbanSitter’s female leadership, which clearly values market transparency. As well as expanding into new cities, UrbanSitter’s Series C will allow the San Francisco-based startup to extend its product into what Perkins described […]
The twist in this story is: Drivezy did an ICO and uses a private currency, offering bitcoin-based tokens to customers to use when renting an idle personal vehicle near them. The platform allows individual car owners to list their idle cars on the company’s platform, which are then rented by customers. The company claims it […]
Dear Dara Khosrowshahi: Please use your recent successes with the board of Uber to clean house and get rid of the myriad intrusive programs the company put in place under previous leadership. Uber has an important and useful service that should not spy on or abuse the personally identifiable data of your drivers and customers. […]
“Curated food” is emerging as a strong basis for on-demand marketing. These services are designed to create habits around healthy and quick eating. In addition to delivery of restaurant food, I expect to see more homes turning to prepared ingredients for some meals. Gobble, which provides pre-assembled, freshly prepared one-pan meals that busy families can […]
The story here is the efforts of retailers to stay put in their brick-and-mortar stores while adding “sharing economy” services. In this case, Designer Shoe Warehouse considers offering shoe rentals. Shoe rentals requires putting more inventory in the store, not less. DSW is raising its costs instead of shifting them to true on-demand services. Then […]
The Irish government is considering regulation of AirBnB and other short-term rental companies, as well as owners who offer their homes online. The problem, which is growing in cities like Dublin and New Orleans, is home owners who are absent most of the year. The coherence of neighborhoods and affordability of housing are being transformed […]