Street Fight Daily: Lyft Raises $1 Billion & Eyes IPO, Subscriptions Come to Instant Articles

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…

Lyft Is Said to Explore IPO as It Raises $1 Billion Led by Alphabet (NYT)
In an escalation of its ride-hailing war against Uber, Lyft has begun to explore going public in 2018 and is trying to strengthen its position by raising more capital, including $1 billion in new financing led by an investment arm of Google’s parent company.

Street Culture: Life at Boxed Means “Do The Right Thing” (Street Fight)
Wholesale ecommerce retailer Boxed is taking its position as team leader seriously. The company pays for its employees’ kids to go to college. It looked at the industry-wide “pink tax” and started a campaign against the higher prices. It even started contributing $20,000 to pay for employees’ weddings.

Facebook to Test News Subscription Sign-Up Via Instant Articles (WSJ)
The subscriptions program will begin with a group of select publishers on Android devices only, as a disagreement between Apple and Facebook over whether Apple will get a cut of the subscription revenue continues to be negotiated. AdWeek: Why brands will love Facebook’s paid-influencer feature

Raise Report: Hiya, HappyOrNot, Standard Cognition Score New Funding (Street Fight)
Every two weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes funding for Omnyway, Crosser, and Allset.

AI Can’t Devise Your Creative, But It Can Handle the Where, What, and When (eMarketer)
The job of managing the amount of data available to marketers has become too big for humans alone to handle. If marketers haven’t yet handed off some data management tasks to machines, they undoubtedly will soon.

How to Outsmart Instagram’s Algorithm to Drive Engagement (Digiday)
Though Instagram does not share specifics about how the algorithm operates, fashion and beauty marketers have a general understanding that post placement within a user’s feed involves a mix of seven key components.

The Loyalty Test: True-Blue Shoppers Engage Via Email (MediaPost)
It may be surprising that millennials show more brand fealty than anyone else, and that email is a top channel overall, according to “Customer Engagement And Loyalty,” a study by Blackhawk Network.

The 10/90 Rule: The Media Industry’s Future Business Model (AdExchanger)
Mark Grether: Some companies are taking steps to restructure their business model, making first-party data creation, aggregation, and analysis critical components. It’s a critical strategy that will help companies maximize the impact of first- and third-party content through a modern business model.

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