Media stocks tanked this week, people buzzed about a possible (but unlikely) Twitter takeover by Google, Sprint’s earnings report didn’t go so well and more headlines from this week in tech:
Re/wind: Media’s No Good Week on Wall Street, Google-Twitter Rumors and More
Also: Sprint falls to fourth place, and EMC’s unusual “downstream merger” plan.
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- Media companies including Viacom, Fox and Disney all saw their share prices plummet this week, as it’s become clear that cord-cutting — the transition from cable TV to over-the-top services like Netflix and Hulu — is eating away at their bottom line. While this is bad news for Viacom shareholders, it’s good news for consumers who will be able to get more bang for their buck with web TV services.
- Twitter’s stock is very low right now, which means it could be ripe for an acquisition. Not that many companies have the cash required to buy it laying around, so everyone’s focused on Google. That said, it probably won’t happen. Also, Google named a new boss for its Express delivery service, and Google Glass advisers still believe that people will eventually want smart glasses.
- Sprint fell to fourth place in the wireless carrier battle this week, overtaken by T-Mobile. The day before its disappointing earnings report, the company hired a new CFO and CTO as part of its ongoing executive shuffle.
- Under pressure from activist investors, the data storage and IT conglomerate EMC is evaluating the unusual move of being bought out by the software company VMware, in which EMC holds a majority stake.
- Leaked Uber numbers show the company loses lots and lots of money, which isn’t too big of a surprise. On the legal front, one group of drivers says the company misled them about what being a contractor actually means.
- Facebook video is racking up huge audience numbers, in large part because of lax copyright protection standards. Example? This week’s Ronda Rousey fight. Is it a problem for Facebook? Not necessarily.
- Roh Habibi, realtor and one of the stars of Bravo reality TV show “Million Dollar Listing San Francisco,” talked with Kara Swisher on this week’s episode of “Re/code Decode.” Also on the show: A guide to Snapchat, plus a discussion about being black in the tech industry.
- Twitter’s “Buy” button rollout will soon ramp up, as the company is working to integrate digital commerce services like Shopify to support thousands of merchants.
- Reddit published its official new content policy, and also announced that it had banned a number of hateful subreddit forums — including a prominent space for white supremacists. The problem? Those subreddits didn’t technically violate the policy, which undermines the entire point of having a policy.
- Apple’s stock hasn’t been doing so hot this summer, losing over $100 billion in value since July because of concerns about Apple Watch sales, the Chinese economy and iPhone sales that missed projections.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
