*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).
Lyft says it has completed 5,000 rides in its autonomous vehicle pilot program in Las Vegas. Taggart Matthiesen, the company's head of product, told Cheddar that customers are starting to acclimate to the idea of a self-driving ride, but it will be a while before safety drivers are unnecessary.
Onavo Protect, a Facebook app that lets users redirect their mobile data through a VPN managed by Facebook servers, was taken off the Apple App Store after Apple said it violated new rules that limit what data developers' collect. Separately, Facebook also said it would warn users of quiz app myPersonality, which allegedly mishandled data of as many as 4 million people.
The entertainment company has raised $4.5 million in new funding. CEO Andy Heyward said the first order of business is launching a new brand called "Rainbow Rangers", which debuts on Nickelodeon in November and is meant to empower young girls.
JPMorgan is bringing its Sapphire brand to banking, a bet that it can change affluent millennial customers' perception of the industry the same way it won them over with its credit cards.
The car-sharing service just that lets drivers rent their vehicles out to strangers just raised $300 million in new financing led by Japan's SoftBank. CEO Sam Zaid tells Cheddar how Getaround stands out in a crowded industry.
Gene Munster of Loup Ventures sees a scenario in which Apple and Tesla's shared love of design might lead to a courtship between the two Silicon Valley titans.
The scope of the issue is still unclear, said Craig Timberg, a technology reporter with the Washington Post. But at least the platforms are being transparent in what they're doing to combat it.
DoorDash just raised $250 million of funding, more than doubling its valuation to $4 billion. CEO Tony Xu told Cheddar why that is justified for a player in such a crowded space.
Video game developers have made the gaming experience more addictive, and it's showing. Sarah Needleman, technology reporter at the Wall Street Journal, explains one factor behind the explosive growth of the gaming industry.
As Venezuela grapples with an economic crisis, the country's President Nicolas Maduro pegged its currency to a newly-launched crypto. But Eduardo Gomez of Bitcoin marketplace PurseIO says the move makes little sense for most Venezuelans.
