*By Conor White*
After losing $136 billion in market cap in less than a week, Facebook is looking for ways to reinvigorate its outlook at a time of slowing ad revenue growth, [continued fallout](https://cheddar.com/videos/facebook-stock-crushed-after-disappointing-earnings) from the Cambridge Analytical data privacy scandal, and the [latest revelation](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/us/politics/facebook-political-campaign-midterms.html) Tuesday that it's detected attempts to influence this November's midterm elections.
"It's been a long 2018 for Facebook," said Madison Malone Kircher, an associate editor at New York Magazine. "Which brings us to the one thing Facebook is doing right, and that's the Stories platform. It works really well on Instagram, which Facebook owns, and they've really been trying to push to make it work on Facebook."
Instagram Stories has 400 million daily users, double the number of users of rival Snapchat, and Facebook has been trying to lure advertisers to the Stories platform.
Kircher said in an interview Tuesday with Cheddar that neither of the social media companies has figured out how to make user-generated stories on their platforms profitable.
"Snapchat, which is the creator of this style of posting, has also struggled with it," Kircher said. "They rolled out a new platform called 'Commercials' this week, which is similarly trying to figure out how to sell ads against this style of content."
In the end, Kircher said Facebook can push Stories to advertisers all it wants, but it won't be successful until it's popular with users.
"It's a two-fold problem Facebook has," Kircher said. "One, trying to convince advertisers to buy ads in this space, but first they have to figure out how to get us to use it."
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/facebook-pushing-stories-feature-to-advertisers).
Apple wrapped up its first product event of the year called 'Peek Performance.' The event showcased Apple's new affordable iPhone, an iPad air update, and the most powerful mac chip yet. Ian Sherr, editor at large at CNET, joins Cheddar News to discuss the highlights of the event.
Uber Lyft and Doordash are all set to spend $1 million dollars on a campaign and efforts to stop lawmakers from classifying their gig workers as employees. The campaign features TV and online ads highlighting Washington area workers who say they prefer the flexibility of being an independent contractor rather than following the model of a company employee. Professor at NYU. Stern School of Business and author of the sharing economy, Arun Sundararajan, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Rachel Van Nortwick, CEO and Founder of Vinylly, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss how this dating app is designed with music lovers in mind, pairing matches based on each individual's unique taste in music.
Stock trading app Robinhood already has been offering cryptocurrency investments but seems further excited about the asset class following President Biden's recent announcement of an executive order. Dan Gallagher, the chief legal and corporate affairs officer for Robinhood, joined Cheddar News to talk about the White House's tentative vision for digital currency. "I think this executive order firmly states that, yes, crypto is here to stay, which it talks about the important competitive issues around crypto and how the United States needs to be a leader, a global leader, in innovation and technology regarding crypto," he said. Gallagher also discussed having clarity around meme stocks going forward but worried about overregulation slowing down innovation.
American private aviation company Wheels Up saw a substantial revenue increase in its Q4 earnings. With bookings ramping up for the summer — along with hopes of being on the tail-end of COVID-19 — the company is looking at a promising upcoming quarter as well. CEO Kenny Dichter joined Cheddar News to talk about the earnings reports as well as the company's new app development. "We’re following that Uber, Airbnb, Amazon playbook and are really going to disrupt this space through technology," he said.
In this edition of Tik Talk, musicians use tech to make songs with plants. The process turns electrodes in the plants into musical notes and the results just might blow your mind.
