Hi Everyone. This is Take Off, your personal tech news barista. We'll whip up frothy, piping hot insights that'll give you that extra jolt you need to tackle the market.

Here's what we're serving up today:

• Lyft says No Splurge on Surge 🚕

• The Next Zuckerberg? 👨‍💻

• Asteroids ☄️

• Tools and Resources ⚒️

Lyft says No Splurge on Surge 🚕

Lyft for sure has definitely had a tumultuous ride post-pandemic.

The company has faced a very rocky road, which includes laying off 1000+ employees, seeing a 36% stock hit (NASDAQ:LYFT), and a complete overhaul in top leadership.

However, the company showed some promising plans during their Q2 earnings last week.

No Splurge on Surge

Lyft was once almost neck-in-neck with Uber. However, that seems like a distant dream now.

So, in an effort to turn around their biz, Lyft decided to pull the oldest trick in the book.

Offer the same service, for less money.

Lyft’s newest tactic is to offer rides at lower fares, eventually turning off the surge pricing. This looks like a great plan, but analysts have mixed feelings.

• The number of active riders in Q2 did increase from 19.6 million to 21.5 million.

• However, revenue-per-rider also fell 5% due to discounted fares.

Paying surge fares for taxis is like paying for popcorn at the movies. You know it's overpriced but ain’t nothing you can do about it.

The Imitation Game

Lyft is also pulling another old trick.

If you can’t beat 'em, join copy ‘em.

Uber launched its ads unit in October last year, which seems to have paid off big time.

The company is forecasted to earn $650 million from ads alone this year, which not only is great in and of itself, but also comes with the juicy margins of the ad biz.

Lyft wants a slice of the ad cake and is doubling down on its own advertising unit via in-app and in-car display advertising.

At the end of the day, EVERYTHING comes down to ads.

The Next Zuckerberg? 👨‍💻

Ever heard that old saying, "history repeats itself?"

Well, it seems like we’ve been shot back to 2004 once again. Kind of.

Two Stanford kids, Teddy Solomon and Ashton Cofer, have launched a college-students only social media platform called Fizz that's growing fast - in fact too fast.

What’s the buzz about Fizz?

Fizz is a lot like Facebook, but if Facebook had kept its college-only policy and had added a dash of Reddit in.

Fizz lets college students chat anonymously within their campus.

Got a crush? Spill it!
Wanna troll your ex over a break-up beef? Vent away!

@theeorginalgg

y’all shaking too many tables 🤣 #fyp#fizz#collegelife#fizzapp

But don't expect any inter-university flirting – Fizz is exclusive only to each student’s college campus.

That’s actually part of the whole appeal. Fizz is designed for exclusivity and giving a sense of closeness to its users.

Why It Matters

The most interesting thing about the company though is its appeal to investors.

As we highlighted in our last issue, VC funding is at its lowest in almost 2 years but it seems like investors are still eager to fund the future of social media.

Fizz closed a $4.5 million seed round in June, and just fast forward a bit, they’ve raised a $12 million Series A.

This fast growth from Seed to Series A is almost unheard of in a bear market.

Fizz seems to be embracing Facebook’s ethos of moving fast but let’s hope it doesn’t break things. IYKYK.

If you’re a college kid who uses Fizz, do you think the app is the future of social media for kids or will it Fizzle out over time?

☄️ Asteroids ☄️

Twitch is giving streamers the power to prevent banned users from watching their live streams! Though there are some workarounds, it's a step towards a safer community. 📺🚫

True Anomaly got the thumbs-up to showcase its space tech on-orbit! Launching in 2024, their "Jackal" spacecraft aims to strengthen U.S. space defense. 🛰️🚀

Threads is spicing things up with reposts in the "Following" feed! There’s also a new reposts tab for easier browsing. With more updates teased by Zuck, exciting times lie ahead for Threads users! 📱✨

⚒️ Trending Tools ⚒️

💻️ SayData - Customer Facing AI Analytics For Your Product

☁️ SocialHub - 1st AI-Native Marketing Cloud

🧠 SheetAI - Add AI to Google Sheets.

🧑‍💻 VectorShift - No-code LLM application builder

📰 Recommended Reading 📰

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