Problems with Twitter coverage

Chris O´Brien of the San Jose Mercury News has some issues with how Twitter´s revenue projections were covered by the business media.

O´Brien writes, ¨Late last week, Bloomberg reported that Twitter expects to hit $1 billion in revenueby 2014, at least two years earlier than analysts had projected. The projection was attributed to two unnamed sources. And it includes the mother of all hedges: ´The San Francisco-based company could change or miss the forecasts, the people said.´

¨So, it might. Or, it might not. Uh, thanks.

¨But what really bothers me about the coverage is that it lacks some basic business journalism 101. That is, no one ever seems to ask: What about expenses?

¨Who knows? But again, nobody ever seems to ask and anonymous sources are no doubt less anxious to discuss it. But that’s what I really want to know: Are your revenues growing faster than your expenses? Absent an answer to that, the amount of revenue (even projected revenue) is meaningless.¨

Read more here.