Daily Crunch: Twitter threads are getting easier

Twitter is rolling out a “continue thread” button, ViacomCBS has big plans for its streaming service and Morgan Stanley acquires E-Trade. Here’s your Daily Crunch for February 20, 2020.

1. Twitter adds a button so you can thread your shower thoughts

Twitter is adding a new feature for mobile users to make it easier to link dispersed tweets together. Per 9to5Mac, the feature — which Twitter tweeted about yesterday — is slowly rolling out to its iOS app. (At the time of writing we spotted it in Europe.)

The feature lets you pull down as you’re composing a tweet to create a thread, or to see a “continue thread” option.

2. CBS All Access to gain content from Nick, MTV, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures & more

Until now, CBS All Access was of primary interest to Star Trek fans, but in today’s otherwise underwhelming Q4 earnings of the newly merged ViacomCBS, the company said the plan is to launch a new “broad pay” streaming service that will include CBS All Access content along with other ViacomCBS assets in film and TV.

3. What the $13B E-Trade deal says about Robinhood’s valuation

News broke this morning that Morgan Stanley, a banking behemoth, will buy E-Trade, an online brokerage and financial services firm, for around $13 billion in stock. Meanwhile, Robinhood has about twice the accounts as E-Trade — but E-Trade probably has more assets under management. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

4. A group of ex-NSA and Amazon engineers are building a ‘GitHub for data’

Data is often highly sensitive and out of reach, kept under lock and key by red tape and compliance, requiring weeks for approval. So the aforementioned engineers started Gretel, an early-stage startup that aims to help developers safely share and collaborate with sensitive data in real time.

5. HungryPanda, a food delivery app for Chinese communities, raises $20 million

Founded in the United Kingdom, where its service first launched in Nottingham, HungryPanda is now available in 31 cities in the U.K., Italy, France, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S.

6. Google gobbling Fitbit is a major privacy risk, warns EU data protection advisor

The European Data Protection Board has intervened to raise concerns about Google’s plan to scoop up the health and activity data of millions of Fitbit users. Google confirmed its plan to acquire Fitbit last November, but regulators are in the process of considering whether to allow the tech giant to gobble up all of Fitbit’s data.

7. Sling TV reports first-ever subscriber decline

This week, the company reported its first-ever decline in Sling TV subscribers, with a drop of 94,000 customers in the fourth quarter. Dish says the streaming service ended the year with 2.59 million total subscribers.

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