Good morning, world, and happy Tuesday!
Part of the world celebrates International Women’s Day today — so tip of the hat to the stronger gender in our lives. A bit later today, but still as good as ever. Enjoy!
Non-Travel Starters
Snapchat is back in the news rounds with a couple of interesting pieces. According to sources, the company is targeting $300M in revenue in 2016 as different models around advertizing are being tested (see last section for more). Additionally, Fidelity, which wrote down their investment in the company a few months ago, is said to have invested another $175M at a ‘flat’ valuation — probably with some solid exit clauses.
The flat or down valuations are now in the news every day — DoorDash denies the rumors for its down round and continues expasion. However, the dash to scale to benefit from better unit economics might be prematurely ended if they run out of cash. Kind of Kozmo.com like. Who know. Link.
Lyft is now in Facebook Messenger, so anyone can use either Uber or Lyft to order a car directly from the messaging platform. David Marcus is slowly turning Facebook Messenger into the killer of Facebook, probably starting to track some good revenue already. Link.
Snacks
Expedia now offers a Conversations tool, which allows hoteliers and owners to communicate with customers who booked on the OTA’s site. Not a first (Booking.com had it before), but definitely another strong step in solidifying the hotels platform under Dara. With CPC bidding on the site, Expedia might offer a viable alternative to Booking.com. Link.
A long interview with Booking.com’s CMO tells us that marketing is done with data scientists who optimize all channels and product variations. That’s great — spending $3.3Bn on marketing in a year also helps. Link.
China’s COMAC C919 series plane will be powered by engines built in China, or so is the intention. That’s quite a shift — not only the body, but also the engines will be build in China in a vertically integrated cluster. With more aircraft manufacturers, we might see good price shifts and potentially more plane orders from carriers. Link.
United’s CEO Munoz is coming back to work on March 14th, after a heart transplant. Welcome back (a few days ahead!). Link.
Dessert
$2,000,000,000: Money lost by Twitter in its 10 years of operations. That’s a double loss unicorn. Link.
500,000,000: Dropbox users. Now, that’s impressive, given the nature of the product. A stats-laden article might prompt a preparation for an IPO soon. Link.
3,000,000: Credit cards added to Apple Pay in China. In 2 days. Link.
2: inches. NASA’s astronaut Scott Kelly ‘growth’ for a year in space — now he is taller than his twin brother Mark. Link
17 hours 15 min: Emirates’ new flight length, Dubai to Auckland. The previously held record was SQ for SIN — JFK at a bit over 18 hours. Link.
Feb 29: Michigan family welcomes a second baby born on Feb 29th in a leap year. Now that’s something. Link
Some Cool Reading (Watching)
Shameless promotion: Skyscanner’s skill is all live and kicking within Amazon Alexa. Super proud of the B2B team and a special shout out to Sir David Low. (2 min). Link.
A short story on Snapchat and its struggle to monetize. (12 min). Link.
Redefining HR at AirBnB in terms of experiences, rather than processes. A good read on how to enhance employee satisfaction. (4 min). Link.
Google’s AI paints like an artist from the Renaissance and the work costs thousands of dollars. Hm… art from AI is not how I imagined computers to help us. (4 min). Link.
//Expressed views and opinions are my own.
Photo Credit: National Geographic is amazing. Please share and give credit to their photographs and photographers. Here’s the link for your daily inspiration: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/
