Uber and Lyft have revolutionized the wildly out of date vehicle-for-hire industry, and both are looking to cash in on their paradigm shift in 2019. Both rideshare services are projected to go public this year with valuations around $100 billion, a massive number that reflects the immense niche that ride-hailing services have carved out in the market.

Uber’s IPO could be the largest ever for a company out of Silicon Valley.

So while cashing in is the end goal for a corporation, the public marketplace is notoriously finicky and troublesome to navigate—just ask Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Twitter has famously struggled to increase its revenue growth as it attempts to expand its platform and profitability avenues. A declining user-base hasn’t helped that cause.

But Uber and Lyft can be viewed through a different lens, as they provide a tangible service that has improved upon an industry desperate for change. Do you recall pacing around the living room when your cab is 30 minutes late and your flight is due to depart in under an hour? Or the classic “credit card machine is down” when you pull out the plastic to pay your fare, leaving your scrambling to find cash. Ridesharing services have eliminated these occurrences altogether, putting pressure on traditional taxi services to adapt, sue, or go out of business.

So both companies should enjoy a prosperous run on the market as they continue to be the go-to service for snagging a ride. Both have officially filed paperwork to go public, but there’s no confirmed date for the IPO. When that occurs, Uber and Lyft will both make a metric ton of cash.

In our current state of chaos, it can be difficult to still the noise. The news comes fast and furious these days, with each headline confusing the previous headline and making it near impossible to find some sense of clarity.

There’s a gulf of division in our nation, one that seems to increase in each passing day. When neighbors are fighting with neighbors, friends are fighting with friends, families are fighting with families, it helps to peer back and revisit words that calmed an angry nation.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

You probably saw that quote across your Facebook feeds yesterday—Martin Luther King Day. It’s one that’s especially prescient now, and one that should be held close during this time of rage, outrage, pettiness and paranoia. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words should be remembered on MLK Day and every day—a reminder that at even amidst the acrimony we’re all in this together.

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Those are surely words to live by, and words to carry close when it feels like things keep getting worse.

We’re back from the holidays on the PR/PR blog, and we hope you enjoyed them as much as we did. But with the end of the holiday season comes a return to regular order, and it’s time to jump right back into our featured Tuesday posts. This week? Wendy’s.

Wendy’s helms one of my favorite Twitter accounts—a ruthless, no-holds-barred online presence that takes no prisoners and has built a massive following as a result. Regardless of your feelings on their square burger patties, Wendy’s’ is one of the most entertaining follows on Twitter, and on January 4^th they took it to a new level.

January 4, 2019 was apparently National Roast Day (who knew?), so Wendy’s took to its Twitter account to savagely insult an eager audience of volunteers. It was hilarious and brutal, and made for some entertaining scrolling to start the year.

Behold:

Tom Hanks should've left you on the island.

— Wendy’s (@Wendys) January 4, 2019

Uniforms our employees can wear in the winter.

— Wendy’s (@Wendys) January 4, 2019

Congratulations on being the worst part of trail mix. https://t.co/2rwaA1AxVC

— Wendy’s (@Wendys) January 4, 2019

This is the type of content that builds followers, however edgy it might be. Wendy’s spent the entire day blasting people on social media and racked up a ton of follows, retweets, likes and impressions on top of it. They’ve molded their online brand in a unique way, and it’s built their audience—and customers—to boot.

The fast food company capped off National Roast Day with a welcome nicety, extending an offer of a free Frosty to all customers on January 11^th. It’s also a creative call to action that will bring hungry patrons into its restaurants as a direct result of its online shenanigans.

You roast the ones you love, and then you share the love. Come in now through 1/11 for your free small Frosty with any purchase with the Wendy's app.

— Wendy’s (@Wendys) January 4, 2019

When you’re looking to establish a brand voice, look no further than the creative hijinks of the Wendy’s Twitter account.

Christmas Day is a Tuesday, which feels a bit strange. Essentially, this week is “Christmas Week” in terms of the lead up to the holiday, so if you’re putting your shopping for the last minute, you really only have a few days left (I’m using this as a personal reminder).

And with the sneak-up holiday season in mind, we want to let you that we will be taking Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off to spend time with our families. Russell is heading out to the Pacific Northwest to endure the bitter cold for a couple of weeks, but I’ll be here holding down the fort in the sunny 70’s in his absence. Should you have any question, please feel free to reach out to me directly!

We truly hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. Whether you’re also heading home for the holidays or avoiding the travel headaches for a comfortable Christmas in town, we want to wish you all of the joy and happiness of the season.

Enjoy Christmas, and I’ll see you all on Wednesday!

The sinister spycraft trend of social media has been well-documented on this blog, and while sipping my morning coffee I stumbled across a headline that seems straight out of Minority Report. Buzzfeed is reporting that Facebook has filed a patent for a new application called “Offline Trajectories,” a new tool within the platform that is designed to predict your future location.

A bit scary, right?

This new feature—which may or may not ever see the light of day—will utilize an algorithm that factors in your current location, past check-ins and travel tendencies to create a prediction for your next likely location. There’s an obvious advantage here for businesses that implement Facebook into their marketing strategies, but the practicality on a user-to-user basis is not quite connecting.

Regardless, it’s got a very New World Order vibe to it, and in current context of Facebook’s privacy controversies, doesn’t seem to be a sound move to instill confidence in the platform.

The social media behemoth is in the midst of a rebound from tumbling stock prices, and it’s unclear if news of Offline Trajectories will have any negative effect on its growth. But it highlights an increasing concern in the online space—privacy—and the ominous direction in which it’s heading. There is immense value for businesses to be able to trace your travel patterns, but what value does that provide to the individual user?

Facebook began as a way to connect and re-connect with others. In recent years it’s become more and more like a lead generation service. We’ll see if Offline Trajectories is ever actually installed on the platform, but if it is, it’s just one more avenue for advertising.