AMC Theatres Unveils "Stubs A-List" Subscription in Response to MoviePass

MoviePass, the service that allows users to view one movie per day in theaters for only $10 per month, has had a controversial history. Although the company is relatively young, its existence has caused plenty of drama within the movie theater industry. To some theaters, the subscription service is great in that they make money off of the movie tickets either way and can encourage greater concessions sales due to the lower ticket prices. To others, most notably AMC Theaters, MoviePass is giving customers unrealistic expectations of future ticket prices, which could cause issues for AMC if or when MoviePass eventually goes out of business. According to an LA Times article, AMC is looking to address those concerns by coming out with their own, similar, service, called AMC Stubs A-List.

Where MoviePass enables users to view up to 7 movies per week at pretty much every local theater, AMC A-List costs double the price and limits viewership to 3 per week, and only at AMC theaters. To the average MpviePass customer, this may seem like a terrible deal. Why would anyone pay double the price to see fewer movies per month at a smaller range of theaters? Well, it all ties into the economics of the subscription service. Yes, on a basic level, MoviePass is a much better deal in the short run. However, if you take into account that MoviePass is running a loss on every customer, it seems to be just a matter of time before the company has to either raise their prices or go out of business.

AMC's planned subscription service isn't as great of a deal initially, but because their pricing scheme is much more reasonable, AMC is much more likely to survive in the long run, from an economic perspective. So, if MoviePass were to one day go out of business, the A-list customers would not regret spending a little more per month for a better guarantee at a lasting service. Then again, MoviePass may survive after all, in which case their loyal customers will continue to reap the rewards.

It's not like AMC Stubs A-List is a bad deal. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The ability to watch up to 12 AMC movies for only $20 is a great deal, especially when the normal price for an AMC theater can be up to $16 for general admission, is incredible. Consumers are only looking down on AMC's subscription service compared to MoviePass' because MoviePass is just so great of a deal. However, AMC's subscription will be about more than basic movie tickets. It will also enable viewers to see IMAX or 3D movies and will provide discounts on various concessions. To many, this deal will seem worthwhile and could trigger a change. AMC's best bet in really capturing that market could be to focus on providing a better service than MoviePass. Many customers are upset with MoviePass that they not require uploaded images of purchased tickets, and by focusing on those complaints, AMC could really make a dent.

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Boring Co. Lands Contract for Chicago Underground Bullet Train

Elon Musk, the CEO of such companies as Solar City, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX, has recently been expanding his reach from outer space and green electricity to various other industries. One of his other companies, Boring Co., has become known for two main things: flamethrowers and high-speed tunnel travel. Musk's "Temperature Enhancement Device" (the name given to the flamethrower to avoid shipping regulations) has amassed huge popularity and thousands of the devices have already gone out to customers around the world. However, Boring Co.'s most exciting future development is a high-speed underground bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco. If the project ever reaches fruition, it could drastically improve the housing markets throughout the state. According to a Bloomberg article, Boring Co. just won a bid to develop a similar bullet train in Chicago, which could be a huge stepping stone for the future of Boring Co.

In working out the plans for this high-speed train, Musk has come to some sobering realizations. Where his original plan featured speeds of over 700 mph, designed for connecting cities that are a few hundred miles apart. After more research, it was concluded that the underground train from downtown Chicago to O'Hare International Airport will travel at speeds of roughly 150 mph, still much faster than any other options, but not nearly as fast as Musk had dreamed. Even after the disappointing results, Musk still seems certain that his planned Hyperloop system will one day reach his high-speed goals, but for longer trips, such as Chicago to New York.

Even though Musk won't be able to get the Hyperloop design he wants, this Chicago project will still be great practice for the 18-month-old Boring Co. Many investors believe strongly in Musk's ability to get things done, but as the company has very little construction experience, it is good that they have the opportunities to figure out how to meet their promises of faster, cheaper, and less disruptive tunnel creation when compared to current technological options. So far, Boring Co.'s tech has only been tested in Hawthorne, but if it shows promising results in Chicago, that could be the kickstart the company needs to get its other projects in LA, New York, and Washington DC fully funded and moving forward.

Boring Co. won the Chicago bid partly because of the CEO's notoriety, but also because its bid was so much lower than all other competitor offers. In fact, because this is sort of a practice run for Boring Co., and a way to get more publicity, Musk's bid was to do the entire project for free. He predicts that it will cost somewhere around $1 billion, but is confident that he will have no problems in securing the necessary funding. Some Chicago officials have welcomed Musk with open arms, excited for the upcoming project, while others have loudly criticized the project as a bold political ploy by the current Chicago mayor. It may take a little time until the project officially gets underway, as the specifications and details of the project still need to be negotiated, but based on Musk's previous projects, the Chicago transportation arena has an exciting future.

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Over Half of American Households Rely Solely on Cell Phone Communication

New technology is the way of the future. While some consumers choose to stick with old-fashioned versions of modernized innovations, the vast majority opt instead to implement the advancements as soon as they become available. One such technological innovation is the mobile telephone. Where people once had to use a payphone to make contact while outside of their home and office, remote communication has become a staple in pretty much every American's life. To that end, according to Tracey Lien's L.A. Times article, over half of the households in America have completely phased out landline telephones.

Landlines were once a valuable necessity in the home, and to this day still have a few benefits. However, they also have significant drawbacks, especially as technology becomes more interconnected in this day and age. In 2006, a survey was conducted that concluded that only about 16% of American households didn't have a landline connection. Since the advent of smartphones and other such devices, that statistic has climbed to 54% in the most recent survey. That number has continued to climb each year. In fact, some European countries have over 80% of households relying solely on wireless phone connectivity, so it is very likely that one day, it could reach 100% in most areas of the world.

Millennials especially have been the ones to push the cord-cutting trend. It's an economic choice. Basically, if they already have a cell phone line that they pay for each month, why would they make a second payment each month to have a phone line that isn't even accessible on the go? The logic isn't completely perfect, as landlines are very beneficial in emergency situations or during power outages. However, if it comes to hundreds of dollars per year in extra cost, many consumers opt to save money, even with the minimal cost to their peace of mind.

New renters or homeowners are choosing to cut costs wherever they can, whether by using video streaming platforms instead of cable or by cutting out the landline phone option. Landlines are more often targeted by telemarketers, and consumers (especially those of the younger demographics) tend to send messages more than speak on the phone anyway, so a landline becomes pretty much useless except in an emergency. 10 years ago, not having a landline was risky. Today, it still has a bit of inherent risk, but with the way technology has been advancing, the risk decreases exponentially each year. It is likely that landlines may one day be gone from homes completely, only present in places of business or governmental institutions.

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YouTube Most Popular Social Media Platform Among U.S. Teens

The internet has evolved so much since it was first created. The internet's growth from a hub of research sharing to the vast interconnected network that exists today is simply mindboggling. None of its original developers could ever have imagined how far their project would come one day. Although the internet is still used for that original intention (sharing research), consumers use it for so much more today. They can go shopping or communicate or socialize or really do pretty much anything they want. The internet is such a dominant force in our society that many online companies can make plenty of money just by getting users to visit their sites. According to a Bloomberg article, one such popular site, YouTube, has become the most dominant social media site, at least in terms of users aged 13-17, the "trendsetting demographic."

These days, the money-making ability and success of a social media company are dependent on how many users it can attract. Even though most of those kinds of sites are free to use, they make money off of advertisements. A few years back, Facebook was well in the lead and was able to make the statement that 71% of teenagers in the United States actively used the site. Now, there isn't one single definitive leader when it comes to favorite social media sites for US teens. The three market leaders are now YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram, while Facebook has only captured 51% of their possible teen market. YouTube is in the lead currently, with 85% of teens in the US using the site, according to a Pew Research study.

Even with a decrease in their capture rate of that ideal demographic,  Facebook still does very well for its shareholders. Facebook makes approximately $23 per user each quarter and has over 185 million users in the US and Canada alone. Those numbers could change pretty quickly in the future, though. Even now, the study found that only 10% of the respondents reported using Facebook as their main social media platform. Conversely, 33% said that Youtube and Snapchat are their top sites, and 15% said that Instagram is visited most often. Facebook's relatively recent acquisition of Instagram could be their saving grace.

Social media apps and plenty of other online platforms have had increased usage over recent years. This is likely because getting on the internet continues to become easier as technology becomes more and more advanced. Where a user once had to go to a physical desktop computer, the advent of portable computing made everything more accessible to so many people. From laptop computers to smartphones, users are now able to get online pretty much anywhere and anytime they want to. In fact, the Pew study found that 95% of teens either have a smartphone or have regular access to one. Also, 45% of teens say that they are online nearly constantly. That kind of ease of use is beneficial to the companies and consumers alike.

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Electric Scooter Companies Risk Backlash from Regulators for Customers' Risky Behavior

Several electric bike and scooter-sharing companies have started up within the past couple of years. One of the biggest companies flooding the streets of major cities like Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and San Fransisco is Bird, now referred to as the Uber of scooters, which seemed to appear out of nowhere less than a year ago. But, while the scooters have grown ever more popular among their growing base of users, Bird has faced backlash from the cities and some of their residents. According to Tracey Lien's L.A. Times article, despite Bird's efforts, the users of the electric scooters consistently ignore local laws and safety guidelines.

But what can Bird really do about it? The cities have tried upping regulations on the scooter companies, they've issued fines and citations, and they've even forced Bird to update their terms and conditions to try to guarantee safer practices. Still, little has changed in terms of user behavior. Bird can add extra rules to their app and make users agree to wear a helmet. Bird can even provide their customers with helmets for free. But there's no way for Bird to actually guarantee that their customers will use the helmets.

After trying to deal with the problem through the company, the cities have had to try other alternatives in promoting safer riding. They have been able to get companies like Bird to improve safety guidelines and commit to providing a percentage of their daily income to the city to go toward improving infrastructure, which could, in turn, promote greater safety and improve user experience. But, they've also tried going after the individual riders, which has worked, to an extent. By issuing citations and fines to scooter-riders not wearing helmets, local police have been able to get some riders to make a more conscious decision and wear a helmet because they don't want to have to pay over $100 for not doing so. Other users choose to avoid the scooters altogether, determining that the risk of a ticket is too high to justify the enjoyment or convenience that the scooters provide.

Still, others continue riding the scooters, and just hope that they never get stopped by the police. They find helmets to be uncomfortable, or inconvenient. Many riders don't wear helmets simply because they don't have their helmet with them. These types of ride-sharing services tend to attract spur-of-the-moment users, not those who knew they would use one from the time they left their house in the morning. The only way for every rider to wear a helmet is if all potential users carried around a helmet with them all day, which just isn't realistic. Some dockable bike-sharing companies have had systems where a user could retrieve a helmet when renting a bike, but such a business design had higher costs, which led many of those companies to go out of business. There have been dozens of injuries reported in recent months, mostly involving scrapes and bruises, but some with broken bones and head trauma. There doesn't seem to be an obvious solution to the problem at the moment, but if Bird and similar companies don't make a change, major cities could start banning the scooters altogether.

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Washington D.C. Public Transit System Purchases Fleet of 14 Proterra Electric Buses

Technological innovations in this day and age, especially those in the realm of transportation, have been focusing more and more on green energy. From Tesla's cars to Nikola Corp's trucks, many companies are trying to steadily phase out the necessity of fossil fuels for long-distance travel. The problem with that goal is that, at the moment, green energy sources and vehicles that utilize those types of energy tend to be more expensive. To that end, the companies that focus on electric vehicles usually need some sort of governmental relationship to get off the ground. With Tesla, customers were able to get government rebates/subsidies after purchasing cars like Tesla's Model 3. According to Russ Mitchell's L.A. Times article, Proterra (a manufacturer of electric buses) sold 14 of its vehicles to the Washington, D.C., Circulator transit system earlier this month.

The complete cost of those buses was not reported, but Proterra's buses are known to cost somewhere between $700,000 and $900,000 each, so it's likely that this purchase cost D.C. quite a bit. On the one hand, spending millions of dollars on electric buses may seem exorbitant, but to another perspective, the fleet of buses serves to show millions of diplomats and tourists from around the world that the United States is working on developing technology with lower environmental impacts and better user experience. Though nearly a million dollars per bus is a lot of money, Washington D.C. gets tens of thousands of tourists each day who use the bus system to visit the various landmarks and museums.

Although Proterra is based out of Northern California, the company has a factory on each coast: one in the City of Industry, California, and the other in Greenville, South Carolina. The South Carolina plant has a perfect location to be accessible to the nation's capital, while the California plant is right in the center of all kinds of innovation going on in the state. The East Coast side of the business puts it in the view of politicians and lobbyists who make the decisions regarding public transportation around the country, and the West Coast side of the business has been able to draw from engineers and manufacturers already in the area for work in the aerospace industry.

Proterra doesn't have a monopoly on electric buses, though. California's plethora of skilled workers has made the Los Angeles area a hub for the development of electric buses and other such vehicles. Another company, called BYD, which is based out of China, has a factory in Lancaster. According to their own numbers, BYD has sold at least 722 buses, while Proterra has sold over 546. For such a pricey commodity, both companies seem to be doing relatively well in an industry that is fairly new. Even some universities are switching their bus systems to electric ones. There's no way to tell for sure, but it seems like the trend of electric buses could really take off throughout the nation in the near future.

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Twitter Planning to Focus More on Video-Based Entertainment

Twitter, one of the most popular social media sites in the industry, is known for its short posts, called "tweets." Over the years, it has grown to allow those posts to include links, or images, or even videos, but mainly, the site is known for their users' ability to communicate via one-liners. Recently, Twitter increased the character count allowed in a message, doubling the approved size, and users have responded positively. Now, according to an article by Bloomberg LP, the company is looking to focus on more video-based options, especially those in the realms of news, sports, and entertainment.

Twitter has been putting in quite a bit of hard work toward making that goal a reality. Already, the social media network has made deals with 30 media companies, including Comcast, Viacom, and Disney. After announcing the Disney partnership last week, Twitter's stocks went up by 4.5%. The company hopes that such partnerships will make the social media platform into more of a hub for live and pre-recorded video streaming.

Many viewers, especially from the younger generations, don't use televisions for the majority of their entertainment. They use smartphones, tablets, and computers to stream from the internet rather than using cable. If Twitter is able to capitalize on that trend and capture a sizable audience of viewers, they could exponentially increase usage of the platform. If more viewers went onto Twitter for news, entertainment, and sports, then they would also stay for everything else the site has to offer, which would improve viewership across the board.

Over the past year, the number of views on Twitter videos has gone up nearly two-fold in regards to daily viewership, and nearly half of the site's advertisement revenue comes from such videos. From "SportsCenter Live" to "Comedy Central's Creator Room," all of the new channels will likely bring in a variety of diverse viewers, who will, in turn, connect their own communities to the platform. The shift to video and live streaming could be the move that pushes Twitter ahead of some other competitors, both in social media and in entertainment.

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