Can ‘Project Lightning’ Give Twitter a Fresh Jolt?
The ubiquitous blue bird associated with Twitter (TWTR) has been incessantly chirping out new announcements this month as the social media phenom tries to pick itself back up after being slammed for weak earnings growth and the underperformance of its stock.
Projections from data firm eMarketer call for the Twitter monthly user base to grow at a measly 14.1 percent this year, compared with more than 30 percent growth two years ago, according to Reuters.
While the news last week that CEO Dick Costolo was relinquishing the corner office was not a shock since he has offered to resign in the past, the appointment of co-founder and former chief executive Jack Dorsey as provisional CEO caused a stir in the business and tech worlds. Not only is Dorsey the CEO of his own mobile payments startup, Square, but he was reportedly removed from his role as CEO of Twitter in 2008.
The shakeup caused a brief spike in the company’s shares, but the stock is now back to where it had been before the announcement — and if it’s going to climb higher, investors may to need to see some other changes, too.
That’s where the slew of product announcements comes in. The latest, revealed yesterday on Buzzfeed, is called Project Lightning. Essentially, if there’s a hot topic that people are tweeting about — either prescheduled events, breaking news or ongoing events — Twitter has created an easy way for users to view the most popular and relevant tweets, images and videos, without having to sift through every tedious comment and retweet. Twitter will have a team of editors select the tweets they think will be most popular on the stories they see as the biggest of the moment.
The goal is to make Twitter easier to use and more engaging for an audience that isn’t necessarily interested in actively tweeting. (Twitter’s stock jumped more than 4 percent Friday in response to the new product announcement, its best day in months.) Similarly, Twitter is trying to bring down other obstacles to using its service. The same day the news was released about Costolo, Twitter also announced the removal of the 140-character limit on the direct messages feature. Getting rid of the limit is a step by the company to keep up with rival social networks and messaging apps, like Facebook and WhatsApp.
Related: Instagram Takes Steps to Open Platform to Advertisers
At the same time it tries to draw in users, Twitter executives know they must do more to attract advertisers. Six ad executives surveyed recently by Reuters said they spend more money on rival platforms because they have more users, better data to target consumers and create more effective ad content. To combat that perception, Twitter this week announced a push to bring in advertisers by rolling out video ads that will automatically play in a user’s timeline. Though initially muted, if a user clicks on the video it will switch to full-screen mode with sound. Advertisers will only be charged when a user has watched at least three seconds of the video on a full screen.
Both Facebook and Instagram offer an almost identical ad feature.
Deficit Hits $738.6 Billion in First 8 Months of Fiscal Year
The U.S. budget deficit grew to $738.6 billion in the first eight months of the current fiscal year – an increase of $206 billion, or 38.8%, over the deficit recorded during the same period a year earlier. Bloomberg’s Sarah McGregor notes that the big increase occurred despite a jump in tariff revenues, which have nearly doubled to $44.9 billion so far this fiscal year. But that increase, which contributed to an overall increase in revenues of 2.3%, was not enough to make up for the reduced revenues from the Republican tax cuts and a 9.3% increase in government spending.
Tweet of the Day: Revenues or Spending?
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee and one of the authors of the 2017 Republican tax overhaul, told The Washington Post’s Heather Long Tuesday that the budget deficit is driven by excess spending, not a shortfall in revenues in the wake of the tax cuts. The Wall Street Journal’s Kate Davidson provided some inconvenient facts for Brady’s claim in a tweet, pointing out that government revenues as a share of GDP have fallen significantly since 2015, while spending has remained more or less constant.
Chart of the Day: The Decline in IRS Audits
Reviewing the recent annual report on tax statistics from the IRS, Robert Weinberger of the Tax Policy Center says it “tells a story of shrinking staff, fewer audits, and less customer service.” The agency had 22% fewer personnel in 2018 than it did in 2010, and its enforcement budget has fallen by nearly $1 billion, Weinberger writes. One obvious effect of the budget cuts has been a sharp reduction in the number of audits the agency has performed annually, which you can see in the chart below.
Number of the Day: $102 Million
President Trump’s golf playing has cost taxpayers $102 million in extra travel and security expenses, according to an analysis by the left-leaning HuffPost news site.
“The $102 million total to date spent on Trump’s presidential golfing represents 255 times the annual presidential salary he volunteered not to take. It is more than three times the cost of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that Trump continually complains about. It would fund for six years the Special Olympics program that Trump’s proposed budget had originally cut to save money,” HuffPost’s S.V. Date writes.
Date says the White House did not respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment.
Americans See Tax-Paying as a Duty
The IRS may not be conducting audits like it used to, but according to the agency’s Data Book for 2018, most Americans still believe it’s not acceptable to cheat on your taxes. About 67% of respondents to an IRS opinion survey “completely agree” that it’s a civic duty to pay “a fair share of taxes,” and another 26% “mostly agree,” bringing the total in agreement to over 90%. Accounting Today says that attitude has been pretty consistent over the last decade.
