Twitter Spikes And Facebook Falls On News About New Twitter-Like Facebook App And New Transparency Report

Shares of Twitter Inc TWTR spiked around 2:44 pm ET following two important announcements.

On the one hand, Business Insider reported that Facebook Inc FBis said to be working on a standalone mobile news app that sounds quite similar to Twitter’s. The application seems to fit in the Facebook for Business initiative, and sources familiar with the matter say Facebook has already chosen a few companies to test the app.

While the company declined to comment on the issue, the sources say the app will work pretty much like Twitter: users will chose who to follow (as well as topics they are interested in) and will receive breaking news alerts from or about them. Apparently, the mobile alerts will be limited to 100 characters of text and a link.

Shares of Facebook bottomed around the time the note was published.

On the other hand, Twitter announced today that it has expanded the scope of its biannual transparency report, which covers government requests and copyright notices, to include trademark notices and email privacy practices.

In addition, the company redesigned the whole site for easier access. Check out the latest Transparency Report at https://transparency.twitter.com.

Shares of Facebook are down more than 0.6 percent now, while shares of Twitter are up about 0.2 percent.