*By Michael Teich*
Amazon inked a new partnership with American Express, but don't expect the financial industry to be the next area the tech giant jumps into.
"The thing that people misunderstand is that tech companies don't want to manufacture financial products," said Lex Sokolin, Global Director of Fintech Strategy at Autonomous Research. "It's about making the ecosystem and the platform more powerful, and finance is just a feature inside of that."
American Express announced Tuesday it will launch a co-branded Amazon credit card for small businesses. The move accelerates Amazon's foray into financial products and strengthens its position as a lender. The goal, Sokolin said, is to enable small businesses to finance their activities, getting more products on Amazon's platform, and ultimately driving more commerce.
Plus, the opportunity costs of devoting itself to the financial industry are too high.
"Amazon has tremendous high-growth, super interesting, blue oceans to explore,” he said. "They could be investing in building a mortgage business, or they can build artificial intelligence business."
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/amazon-bolsters-financial-prowess-with-new-credit-card)
Wall Street closed its first losing week in the last four with an up-and-down Friday, as investors brace for the Federal Reserve to tighten the brakes on the economy more aggressively to beat down inflation.
Baseball is as American as — Apple TV+. The National Pasttime has a new media partner this season, as the MLB will be streaming Friday night doubleheaders on the Apple streaming service. Noah Garden, the league's chief revenue officer, spoke to Cheddar News to break down the details of what's being offered in the new package and why Major League Baseball felt the need to make the move this year. "We've been in a situation where we've lost reach, even within the cable bundle. There are situations where people in the local market don't have access to watch their favorite team and their local team on top of that," he said. "You have cord cutters and even probably more importantly, cord nevers. So streaming offers of some ability to gain reach that we've lost over the the last couple of years, and Apple was really the perfect partner for us."
It's National Beer Day! Miller Lite is celebrating with its new Beer Drops meant to "improve" the flavor of other light beers to be more like Miller Lite. Elizabeth Hitch, senior director of marketing at Molson Coors, joined Cheddar News to discuss the cheeky product taking a jab at the competition. “We found is that a lot of these beer brands were giving away free product, free beer, and we thought what good is it to have a free beer if it doesn't taste good, right? So, we thought about these flavor-enhancing beer drops to actually add flavor to other light beers to give them as much taste as Miller Lite," she said. Hitch also addressed ongoing concerns with aluminum shortages amid supply constraints as well as a foray into NFTs.
Angie Klein, CEO of Visible, and Melissa Hobley, CMO of OkCupid, join Cheddar News to talk about teaming up to create a singles registry just in time for wedding season.
Ken Grier, associate creative director at Dictador, joins Cheddar News to talk about the company launching NFT enabled luxury spirits and its art-oriented treasury club, ArtHouse Spirits DAO.
