Twitter aiming to raise $1 billion on stock market as TWTR

It’s the biggest, most highly anticipated Silicon Valley stock market IPO since Facebook. Twitter last night revealed its plans for its stock market floatation. The seven year old company has filed documents with the aim to raise $1 billion from stock market investors.

News breaking, celeb gossip making

Twitter has grown to be ever more important to news breaking, celeb gossip and populist TV chat than other social networks. The platform seems to have an immediacy that appeals to such events. As noted by Reuters it is the way that we heard of the first news of the US military assault on Osama bin Laden's compound. Also it was used widely to stir the people in the Jasmine revolution and as the following dominoes fell.

Twitter currently has 218 million monthly users from whom 500 million tweets are sent every day. For getting cash in, the company is heavily reliant upon advertising. The BBC reports that 85 per cent of revenue is from advertising while most of the rest of its income comes from licensing its data.

Still losing money

Twitter has recently enjoyed large revenue growth but it is still losing money and always has done. The most recent full year revenue figures show that revenue almost tripled to $316.9 million in 2012 (ahead of analyst expectations). Things are looking better in the first half of 2013; Twitter has posted revenue of $253.6 million and a loss of $69.3 million. These figures look comparable to Facebook’s financial history, which had a similar past of greater revenue and diminishing losses before swinging to profits.

Not $1 billion, but $10 billion or more

The $1bn figure is stated just for documentation registration purposes – it will change to somewhere between $10bn and $15bn say analysts. Twitter will be listed under the symbol TWTR, however we do not know as yet if it will be on the books of the Nasdaq or New York Stock Exchange. The IPO is expected to hit the markets before the end of November.

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Hmm, not that I'm a major user, (don't hold to these “having my breakfast”, “going to work” type threads), but Twitter's become less and less relevant (/interesting) to me in the past couple of months. The (moronic) restrictions on the use of 3rd party clients (most of which were notably better than the official one) was the first straw, but I've been annoyed by an increasing amount of intrusive advert spam.

If it wasn't for the fact that it's a convenient way to get to some discussion sites then I think I'd close my account. G+ is more interesting to me these days - although the clients for that could do with a few usability tweaks here and there.

Needless to say I won't be rushing out to try and buy TWTR shares!

crossy
….

Needless to say I won't be rushing out to try and buy TWTR shares!

Me neither, though not for the reason people might assume.

Anyone on here that knows me at all probably knows I'm no fan of social media sites like Twitter or FB. They bore me, offer me little to nothing I want, and are just a way for an American corporation to gain profiling data on me, which it is utterly inevitable will, sooner or later, be used for that “intrusive advert spam” you mentioned.

BUT …. just because I find the whole operation rather obnoxious in principle doesn't mean it hasn't been, and won't continue to be, wildly successful in getting people to use it.

So, my reasons for not buying shares are that, first, for me, it's just too much of a punt, and second, I don't invest in companies where I dislike the fundamental purpose of their business model. And it's a punt because while it MIGHT bring in a good return, it's got major problems to overcome in monetarising it's success, precisely because of that “intrusive advert spam” reaction, and because it's still possible that it could fall victim to the next, latest and greatest net innovation coming along and pulling the rug.

I'm not a major user either, but I think twitter has gained the whole ‘Just had a cup of coffee’ reputation unfairly, when I bother to look at my feed I always find something interesting but then I don't really follow friends. It's way more interesting than something like Four Square ‘Animus404 has just checked in to ASDA’

I am way too antisocial to be fascinated by Facebook, and I'm not even gregarious enough for Google+. But as a late starter in social media I'm finding Twitter increasingly useful across a broad range of interests… even though the ramping up of adverts and promoted tweets is getting a bit more noticeable and tiresome. That's inevitable with any ‘free’ service though. I got used to the 4 second wait on YouTube and I'll get used to this.

Speaking of tweets, I hate that word. But I'd still be seriously tempted to sink some long term money into this IPO if there was a way to do it as with the Royal Mail floatation. But by the time the little guys get their hands on these shares much of the first year's gain will have been wrung out of them, so I'll sit back and wait for a later opportunity. I think this has potential long term… which is usually the kiss of death. I've made some really lousy decisions since opening a small trading account at the 2009 market lows.

My timing was perfect. My decision making, quite the opposite. :-)

Twitter?
Sh1tter

Twitter aiming to raise $1 billion on stock market as TWTR

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