Twitter, the social media site that numerous celebrities and many others use, got some much needed good news this weekend when they had their best closing value since the beginning of the year. Over the storied history of Twitter this looks to be a small sign of good things to come.

Twitter has always had rises and falls. Usually right after one is the other. This is giving investors hopes that with the announcements made of new abuse and harassment policies and JP Morgan publicly giving a positive feedback that things will get better.

Twitter has been scorned for their weak outlook and self regulation on their abuse and harassment issues that have plagued every social media site. They are hoping to rectify that problem with a new policy update. Stricter rules and harsher punishments always seem to be a good way to keep the malcontents at bay.

CEO Jack Dorsey is attempting to turn around Twitter but the latest quarter result, released Tuesday night, is no indication that will happen anytime soon. First quarter 2016 advertising revenue came in softer than anticipated. Analyst were hoping for $608 million in revenue but the company only produced $595 million. Shares tumbled after hours last night and opened up down 16% were they stayed all day (closing at $14.86), even as the overall market climbed in the afternoon.

Twitter added 5 million new users during the quarter, although Twitter is famous for having more fake accounts created than real accounts. The company also stated that 310 million users are active each month. The is an improvement over user sign-ups and activity from prior quarters. The popular social media site ranks second in media attention behind only Facebook.

Twitter is struggling to make money and has made a move to reduce costs by cutting 340 employees. The company currently employees 4100 individuals. They recently brought back founder Dorsey to run the company as user engagement and growth has slowed. Some feel reason moves spell trouble for the messaging service that is very popular put has never been profitable.

The company has expanded over the past two years so the cuts may be overdue. They have an upcoming profit report at the end of October that could be disappointing. The stock moved hire after the cut announcement. Recently they have begun to face competition from WhatsApp and SnapChat. I find the service compelling and the information useful compared to the spammy and often fact articles shared on Facebook.

Twitter 6x6 (Photo credit: Steve Woolf)

Twitter IPO Vs. Facebook

Is there a race between social networks to see which company will have the bigger IPO? At first glance, it would seem Twitter had no intentions of posting such a high IPO, but their current policy of growth says otherwise.

When considering the nature of an IPO as an initial public posting, this one appears to be a shock to the market. Twitter was not expected to feature so strongly, even though they are worth a fraction of Facebook. This news is causing a buzz in financial circles.

Image via CrunchBase

Social networking sites may have made the world smaller, but they have also resulted in an added security threat to businesses. Almost a third of all Internet users are on Twitter with around 175 million tweets being circulated a day. The speed at which information travels is the basis of how stock market swindlers work. It is difficult to pinpoint the source of a piece of information that has gone viral, and in the while that it takes to find and shut it down, the damage can be done.