Morning Buzz: Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI), Ion Geophysical Corp (NYSE:IO)

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) continues to generate a bit more mileage from its first Investor Day conference on Tuesday as it advances another 1% in pre-market trading towards its 200-day moving average at $45.12. Although the stock has failed to generate the kind of price appreciation that was expected after its November 2013 IPO, the company's lofty goals for future growth, as well as introduction of new features seems to be encouraging investors this morning.One problem Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) has consistently faced is the lack of aggressive user growth seen in other social media applications. While Twitter currently has just 284 million active users from 232 million a year ago, CEO Dick Costolo shifted focus away from the anemic active user growth rate to the 500 million logged-out users that visit the site each month, according to several media reports. Twitter plans to engage a strategy to turn those 500 million into active users by making the site easier to use and introducing an "instant timeline" that would allow users to surface interesting or popular tweets published since the last time a user was logged on.Twitter also introduced other new features to lure in users such as direct messaging, consumer video and location-based personalized tweets. According to Costolo, Twitter plans to "accelerate the pace and breadth of product change" in an effort to grow its core monthly active user base to 550 million in the next 5-8 years and to over 1 billion in the "longer-term" (by comparison, Facebook currently has 1.23 billion active users). Whether or not Twitter can reach these ambitious goals remains to be seen, but for now, investors seem to be happy with Costolo's plan to bring the social media site into the echelon of Facebook and Google.Click here for a free comprehensive Trend Analysis ReportDarden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI) shares rose to a two-year high of $56.85 Thursday after the company said it eliminated the poison pill, a measure meant to defend the company against takeovers, effective on Nov. 28 rather than its planned May 25, 2015. The company's board also adopted other changes, including a measure allowing directors to be voted in with a majority vote in uncontested elections and a measure that eliminates supermajority voting requirements for certain charter amendments. After rising to a new multi-year high, Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI) shares recently traded at $56.44, up 1.3% and with a new 52-week range of $43.56-$56.85.Click here for a free comprehensive Trend Analysis ReportIon Geophysical Corp (NYSE:IO), a technology-focused seismic solutions company, said Thursday that its senior vice president and chief financial officer Greg Heinlein has resigned and will be replaced by Steve Bate, executive vice president and chief operating officer of ION's Systems division. Bate joined ION in 2005 as chief financial offer of the company's solutions business. His role further broadened to include various leadership positions in ION's different businesses including as president and chief executive officer of ION's joint venture INOVA Geophysical. Prior to joining ION, Bate was president of a residential construction company and has founded his own consulting business. Ion Geophysical Corp (NYSE:IO) shares edged 1.85% lower to $2.66 in morning trade, near the low end of the 52-week range of $2.30 - $4.73.Click here for a free comprehensive Trend Analysis Report