*By Michael Teich*
The World Cup will take over a large part of the Twitter universe this summer when the quadrennial international soccer championship begins June 14 in Russia, and the social network aims to reach fans far and wide with its live video platform.
About 80 percent of Twitter's 330 million monthly active users are outside the United States, said Motley Fool analyst Jason Moser. The World Cup represents an opportunity for Twitter to grow that reach.
Four years ago, the tournament in Brazil reached 3.2 billion viewers around the world, and fans around the world are expected to be at least as excited this year.
Consumers are ditching cable at a rapid clip and opting to stream video content from services such as Netflix and Hulu. Disney's ESPN has been slow to adapt and retain subscribers, social media companies including Twitter are capitalizing by loading up on live and on-demand sports content.
The social media company's investments to become a premier destination for video appear to be paying off: Twitter revealed in its latest quarterly report that video ads made up more than 50 percent of total ad revenue.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/twitter-looking-forward-to-world-cup-boost-2).
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
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