Tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter will once again face Congress this week to testify in the Russian election meddling investigation. Daniel Ives, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Technology Research at GBH Insights and Scott Kessler, Director of Equity Research and Analyst at CFRA join The Long and The Short to discuss which platform will be affected the most from this trial.
Facebook announced a new News Feed where "meaningful content" will take priority over "relevant content." Ives says that this change could actually be good for the company in the long term. He doesn't believe it will impact publishers or user growth as much as people are afraid it will. When it comes to testifying on Capitol Hill, Kessler believes Facebook will be on the defense and take a firm stance on defending its platform.
Plus, Twitter's stock spiked after Facebook announced it was changing its News Feed. Kessler thinks Twitter is the one company that hasn't answered questions from Congress regarding Russian meddling in the election. He talks about Twitter's long road to improve upon certain operations.
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.
