Technology
Yelp just spent $80M on a site for car repair estimates
Yelp, which made a name for itself giving restaurant recs, just bought an auto services website.
In the company’s earnings report on Thursday, Yelp revealed that it agreed to buy RepairPal, a site for car repair estimates, for $80 million in cash. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of the year, subject to customary closing conditions.
“We believe RepairPal will accelerate our broader services efforts by expanding our offerings in the multi-billion dollar U.S. auto services advertising vertical,” Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.
While it might not seem like an obvious marriage, RepairPal fits into Yelp’s ambition to become a major home services funnel.
In recent years, Yelp has added functionality beyond restaurant and business search tools, like an AI-powered feature that suggests plumbers, repairmen, and other home service providers to users potentially in need of them. Yelp has also introduced programs like Yelp Guaranteed, which offers up to $2,500 of coverage for qualifying projects in case of problems.
Yelp makes money through fees it receives from service providers for certain leads — and through ads. In the company’s most recent fiscal quarter (Q3 2024), advertising revenue from services businesses increased 11% year-over-year to a record $228 million, with revenue growth of around 15% in the home services category alone.
In its shareholder letter, Yelp says that RepairPal generated approximately $30 million in revenue and was roughly break-even on cash and net income.
“We believe there are clear synergies between Yelp and RepairPal,” the letter reads. “RepairPal brings deep knowledge of auto repairs and pricing, which we can leverage to improve our offerings for auto services businesses. They also maintain a robust partner network, including CarMax, USAA, and Endurance Vehicle Services. Meanwhile, Yelp has a large consumer audience and expertise in areas like search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and AI, which we believe will provide value to RepairPal going forward.”
The acquisition is a nice exit for San Francisco-based RepairPal, which managed to raise $21.3 million in funding from Cars.com, Tugboat Ventures, and others in the 17 years since the company’s founding. In its press release, Yelp didn’t say whether founders Aaron Tavistock, David Esser, and David Sturtz will be joining Yelp corporate.
A Yelp spokesperson later confirmed to TechCrunch that all RepairPal employees, including the leadership (but not the founders, who no longer head the company), will be joining Yelp.
Australia is planning to pass “world-leading” legislation to protect children from harmful social media use. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the law, which will enforced later next year, will ban under-16s from using social media platforms including TikTok, Facebook, X, Instagram and likely Google’s YouTube.
“Social media is doing harm to our kids and I’m calling time on it,” Albanese said during a news conference on Thursday. Citing how excessive social media use is harming the physical and mental health of children, Albanese highlighted risks to girls in particular from harmful depictions of body image, and misogynist content aimed at boys. “If you’re a 14-year-old kid getting this stuff, at a time where you’re going through life’s changes and maturing, it can be a really difficult time and what we’re doing is listening and then acting,” Reuters quoted the PM as saying.
The island nation is currently testing age-verification systems using biometrics and government IDs to block children under 16 from accessing social media platforms. Reportedly, the legislation will not exempt underage users with parental consent or those who already have active accounts.
The prime minister said the law will tabled in the Australian Parliament later this month and it will come into effect next year, after it is ratified by all lawmakers. “The onus will be on social media platforms to demonstrate they are taking reasonable steps to prevent access. The onus won’t be on parents or young people,” PM Albanese said.
Australia’s Law Minister Michelle Rowland said the platforms affected by the new law would include Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X. Rowland added YouTube is also likely to fall within the scope of the legislation.
Industry representative body DIGI called the move dangerous and said it would only encourage children to explore darker, unregulated parts of the internet. Sunita Bose, Managing Director of the body including Meta, TikTok, X and Alphabet’s Google as members, said, “Keeping young people safe online is a top priority…but the proposed ban for teenagers to access digital platforms is a 20th-century response to 21st-century challenges.” Bose said creating age-appropriate spaces and digital literacy was the way forward.
Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.
Like Wordle, Connections, and the Mini Crossword, Strands can be a bit difficult to solve some days. There’s no shame in needing a little help from time to time. If you’re stuck and need to know the answers to today’s Strands puzzle, check out the solved puzzle below.
How to play Strands
You start every Strands puzzle with the goal of finding the “theme words” hidden in the grid of letters. Manipulate letters by dragging or tapping to craft words; double-tap the final letter to confirm. If you find the correct word, the letters will be highlighted blue and will no longer be selectable.
If you find a word that isn’t a theme word, it still helps! For every three non-theme words you find that are at least four letters long, you’ll get a hint — the letters of one of the theme words will be revealed and you’ll just have to unscramble it.
Every single letter on the grid is used to spell out the theme words and there is no overlap. Every letter will be used once, and only once.
Each puzzle contains one “spangram,” a special theme word (or words) that describe the puzzle’s theme and touches two opposite sides of the board. When you find the spangram, it will be highlighted yellow.
The goal should be to complete the puzzle quickly without using too many hints.
Hint for today’s Strands puzzle
Today’s theme is “????✌️☝️✊?”
Here’s a hint that might help you: speaking without words.
Today’s Strand answers
Today’s spanagram
We’ll start by giving you the spangram, which might help you figure out the theme and solve the rest of the puzzle on your own:
Today’s Strands answers
- SHAKE
- CLAP
- POINT
- FIST
- PEACE
- PINCH
- WAVE
- PRAY
Russell Hardy, chief executive officer of Vitol Services Ltd.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
SINGAPORE — Vitol is eyeing the metals market with global petroleum demand expected to peak in a decade, signaled Russell Hardy, CEO of Vitol, the world’s largest independent energy trader.
“The petroleum, the oil business, we still think it will reach a peak at some point, about 10 years ahead from where we are today,” Hardy said on Thursday at the Financial Times Commodities Summit in Singapore.
In contrast to the eventual decline of the crude industry, metals business is going to witness a “great deal of growth through the electrification phase,” he added.
“So we quite like the idea of being involved in the bigger metal markets. And the three bigger metal markets are steel and iron ore, copper and aluminum,” he said.
In August, Vitol announced its acquisition of Noble Resources, a Hong Kong-based trader specializing in oil, coal and metallurgical coke, which is used to make iron. Vitol in April poached two metal traders from Mercuria, Reuters reported.
It’s a 10 year ambition, and I’m not going to put any pressure on ourselves to be in a particular place in three years, or five years.
Russell Hardy
CEO of Vitol
Energy trading giants, such as Gunvor and Mercuria, have in recent years been eyeing the metals space as they explore opportunities offered by the shift in favor of clean energy.
Critical minerals such as copper, nickel, cobalt and lithium are key in the manufacturing of EV batteries, electric vehicles, power grids and solar panels — some of the components driving the energy transition ecosystem.
Copper in particular is widely expected to see an exponential demand and a potential shortage. Existing mines and projects under construction will meet only 80% of copper needs by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.
The process of scaling a metals business to the same size as its energy arm would be a long and difficult process, acknowledged Hardy, adding that the metals market is a competitive one and the trading house will have to find its “edge” and “pathway.”
“It’s a 10 year ambition, and I’m not going to put any pressure on ourselves to be in a particular place in three years, or five years,” he said, while emphasizing that oil and gas remain “really important” business units for the trader.
Vitol saw a slew of bumper profits in recent years on the back of Europe’s energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Google Store offers a plethora of accessories for Pixel products, even from third-party manufacturers. However, until now, it has yet to sell third-party bands for its smartwatches. That just changed with the inclusion of the Spigen Rugged Band for Pixel Watch devices in the Google Store. Plus, there’s a new silicone bumper designed for the Google TV Streamer.
The Spigen Rugged Band for Pixel Watch devices now available in the Google Store
The Spigen Rugged Band is available in both 41mm and 45mm sizes. While the name mentions that it’s designed for the Pixel Watch 3, the 41mm version is compatible with the Pixel Watch 2 and the original Pixel Watch. The band features a sporty design reminiscent of Casio watches. Spigen says the new band has “carbon fiber accents and a matte finish.”
The band uses a traditional “slide and lock” adjustment system based on holes and a hook. The brand claims that this ensures an ideal fit for any situation. Spigen also boasts that the band is sturdy and flexible, so it should hold up to rough use for a long time without any issues.
The new Spigen Rugged Band for Pixel Watch devices is available in a sober black color for $34.99 from the Google Store. Interestingly, it’s also available on Amazon for a lower price ($24.99). Spigen hasn’t confirmed if it will release more colors in the future.
A bumper to protect your Google TV Streamer too
Spigen also released a silicone bumper for the Google TV Streamer. The accessory will be quite useful in case of accidental drops thanks to the built-in rubber perimeter. It does not cover the top of the device, presumably to prevent any interference with wireless signals. Plus, there’s a lanyard and adhesive that will make it simple for you to mount the device behind your TV or on any vertical surface.
Unlike the band for Pixel Watch devices, the bumper is available in two colorways: hazel and porcelain. You can purchase the bumper, officially called the “Spigen Silicone Fit,” from both the Google Store and Amazon. Again, the price on the Google Store is significantly higher at $39.99 compared to Amazon’s $29.99.
While Activision has been striving to its notoriously huge Call of Duty games so they take up less storage space, you may still need more room on your console. That’s true even if you have the with 2TB of built-in storage. Games can quickly fill an internal SSD and if you’re an Xbox Series X/S gamer, Seagate’s expansion card is perhaps the way to go.
The 2TB variant is on sale at the minute. It has dropped to . That’s $160 off the regular price.
Seagate
Seagate’s expansion card is one of the best options for expanding your Xbox Series X/S storage. A 2TB version has dropped to $200, its lowest price to date.
Look, proprietary storage stinks, but the choice for Series X/S owners looking for more space is largely between Seagate’s Storage Expansion Card and WD’s Black C50. It’s possible to store Series X/S games on a regular external drive, but you’ll need to move them to internal storage or an expansion card anyway to actually play them. If you don’t want to deal with shifting large files around and waiting for transfers to complete, or you don’t want to delete and download games more than is necessary, an expansion card is the way to go.
Seagate’s version is one of our picks for the . The 2TB version should give you ample space — at least until you start filling it up with all of the huge Call of Duty games that have .
Check out all of the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals here.
ByteDance’s new AI tool, X-Portrait 2, transforms still photos into realistic video animations of famous movie scenes with uncanny detail, raising questions about the future of AI-driven animation and digital content creation.Read More
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