The indictment of 13 Russians for interfering with the Presidential election has intensified the pressure put on Facebook, which uncovered about three-thousand Russian-linked ads on its platforms before and after November 2016. Cheddar Senior Reporter, Alex Heath, breaks down the the latest developments.
Facebook's Vice President for ads, Rob Goldman, tweeted about Russia's disinformation effort. President Trump then cited him. Facebook did not intend for Goldman’s tweets to be quoted by Trump. They thought the tweets would only be seen by a contextually-aware audience of techies and media types who follow Goldman.
Heath believes that the tweeting from Goldman and other execs is part of a carefully orchestrated PR campaign by Facebook to make itself appear more transparent and relate-able through engaged spokespeople on Twitter.
Mezu is joining the growing list of money-transfer apps by staking out a niche for privacy-conscious consumers. CEO Yuval Brisker said Mezu's selling point is the ability to transfer money without the use of personal information, like email or phone numbers.
Warren Schlichting, president of Sling TV, spoke to Cheddar from Denver Startup Week Monday about the changing media landscape. "I don't want to pay for things I'm not watching," he said, channeling the mantra of the 2.3 million cord-cutters who make up Sling's customer base.
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Comcast's $38.8 billion winning bid for British satellite broadcaster Sky was a "shocking price" to pay for international expansion, said Rich Greenfield, media and tech analyst at BTIG.
Shares of Pandora surged Monday after the satellite radio company announced an all-stock deal to acquire the streaming service. Sirius made a $480 million investment in the company last year, taking about a 15 percent stake in it. BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield says the deal is probably bittersweet for Pandora which "really failed as a public company."
The blockchain has made its way into a slew of industries. Next at bat ー the sports world. The Los Angeles Dodgers are moving away from traditional promotions and have begun using crypto tokens to give away digital bobbleheads to fans. Ralph Esquibel, VP of information technology for the team, said this is the first giveaway of its kind and could lead to more experiments with cryptocurrencies.
GSTV, which delivers content across thousands of fuel retailers in the U.S., reaches 75 million unique visitors and hopes to reach one in two adults in the next few years. Sean McCaffrey, president and CEO of GSTV, said that the scale of the company is increasing daily.
GSTV recently partner with Cheddar to distribute content through its outlets.
The Canadian cannabis company has seen exponential growth with shares doubling since just mid-August, when Corona-maker Constellation Brands upped its stake with a $4 billion investment. CEO Bruce Linton said interest is now coming from pharma giants, which will rely on companies like Canopy for research, patented technology, and formulas.
Facebook plans to finally unveil its Portal video chat device for the home next week, Cheddar has learned. The device will function similarly to an Amazon Echo Show with social features and come in two screen sizes, according to people familiar the matter. The wide-angle video camera will use artificial intelligence to recognize people in the frame and follow them as they move throughout a room.
Amazon will get a lot more than 3,000 brick-and-mortar stores when it builds out its cashierless Amazon Go chain.
