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.
Walmart is reportedly developing a new streaming service that can rival competitors Netflix and Amazon. But the massive costs associated with might make it difficult to succeed. "This is a really hard business to get into," says The Information reporter Jessica Toonkel, who broke the story on Walmart's plans.
Europe is slapping the company with a massive fine for violating antitrust laws and eliminating competition by combining its search engine and apps as one Android operating system. Google was also fined $3 billion by the EU last year for manipulating search results.
The backlash from President Trump's meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin continued well into Tuesday, with politicians from both sides of the aisle condemning Trump. During his meeting with Putin on Monday, Trump seemed to side with the Russian President over U.S. intelligence officials on the issue of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Shares of Netflix tumbled after the company reported lower-than-expected subscriber growth in its quarterly earnings report on Monday. The streaming giant also missed Wall Street estimates on revenue and earnings per share.
And Jonathan Trager, CEO of Group Elephant, joins Cheddar to talk about his organization's mission to stop the poaching of elephants and rhinos in South Africa.
An app called CommonStock has come out of stealth mode with more than $1.8 million in seed funding to make stock trading more social, Cheddar has learned. "We’ve created what’s like a virtual trading floor where anyone can create a group and easily share information about a stock or crypto,” said CEO David McDonough.
The streaming player company introduced a set of wireless speakers to be integrated into the Roku system. “We know that when users sit down, and they stream their favorite shows or listen to music, if they’ve got great sound as a part of that, it’s just a more immersive experience,” says Mark Ely, vice president of product management for Roku.
The streaming platform added fewer subscribers and generated less revenue than projected in the second quarter. Shares plunged by more than 12 percent in after-hours trading.
This year, Amazon Prime Day is bigger than ever. Cheddar's Hope King explains how this fabricated shopping holiday is a way for Amazon to lure even more Prime subscribers.
With Amazon’s fourth annual Prime Day just around the corner, experts warn the retail giant might not have the best deals out there. “Last year, 20 percent of items that Amazon customers bought on Prime Day were actually cheaper at other stores,” says Louryn Strampe, deal editor at Mobile Nations' Thrifter site.
The start-up launched a pilot program at the Rockaways on Friday. The move comes shortly after Lime entered a partnership with Uber that allows Lime to integrate into the ride-hailing app. "To grow throughout the entire area, this is the first opportunity for us," says Caen Contee, Vice President of Marketing, Business Development, and International Expansion.
The airline announced plans to launch the first direct link between Nairobi and New York, and the CEO believes this is a good first step for countries to invest in Africa. "It's statistically, by far, the youngest population on earth, and is, particularly in Kenya, heavily digitalized," Sebastian Mikosz tells Cheddar. "It's a continent of many opportunities."
