Michael Simon, staff writer for PCWorld, discusses President Obama's comments in an interview with Prince Harry where he warned against the misuse of social media, hinting at leaders that use platforms to divide and spread misinformation.
Simon discusses how news outlets play to their specific partisan audiences, MSNBC to its liberal viewers and Fox to conservatives. Simon predicts that the shift will be to more opinion-based news as opposed to fact-based sources. And in this age of targeted advertising, that is what works
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin is putting new laws in place that will oversee use of the internet in his country. The Russian president has acknowledged that he will be monitoring the activity of certain companies more closely as they head into the upcoming Russian election.
Just ahead of Google parent company Alphabet reporting its fourth quarter earnings, investors are keeping an eye on revenue from its cloud services, which has been a major area of development recently as well as its ad revenue. Adam Lampe, CEO and Co-Founder of Mint Wealth Management explains why the cloud may be the future for Alphabet.
After weeks of bad news about Peloton, reports indicate that the at-home fitness giant might find itself getting acquired. Doug Astrop, managing partner at Exponential Investment Partners, joined Wake Up With Cheddar to discuss the possibility that Amazon, Nike, and Apple might be showing interest in buying the subscription-based business, whose shares have plummeted near 80 percent in the past year. "At some point everybody hits the limit on how many monthly fees they want to pay, how many subscriptions they want to have," said Astrop. "And you know, you've got Netflix, you got Amazon Prime, you got Spotify — I mean there's there's endless people who want you to pay a monthly fee. So, if you can be part of these bundles, it can really be advantageous for everybody."
Jarrod Loadholt, Partner at Ice Miller, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he breaks down the latest proposal by the SEC and explains how it could allow the agency to make major regulatory moves within the cryptocurrency space if approved.
Personal data platform Caden raised $3.1 million in pre-seed funding. Caden says its service allows users to have complete control over their data and earn a profit from it by sharing certain data with trusted brands, while never relinquishing ownership. The company also says its goal is to transform the internet and the use of personal data and make a better system for both consumers and brands. Caden founder and CEO John Roa joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Consolidation has been transforming the industry for at least the past two years, but much of the activity was happening in the background. That all changed in the past month.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.