Twitter in 'no hurry' to go public; Wants to remain 'independent'
As Twitter reached its 100 million mark this month, executives told reporters that it "had no plans" to make an initial public offering (IPO), but will instead increase its business range by broadening out where adverts can appear.
Highlighting that the company wants to remain "independent", it is unlikely that shares in the company will be floated any time soon -- perhaps to much disappointment.
Twitter's bosses said that users will tolerate seeing advertisements and promoted tweets on their pages.
Promoted tweets and adverts started displaying in 2010, taking a cautious approach to the insular world of microblogging, not only to avoid annoying users but to see how users of the giant used and interacted with adverts.
Previously, a promoted tweet to Starbucks or Coca-Cola, only appeared within a rolling feed of Twitter updates, and if that user had chosen to follow the company. Dick Costolo, Twitter's CEO, said that not only will users start to find advertisements from companies they don't follow, it will expand advertisers ability to spread their message using the platform.
Twitter, once seen as the 'joke' company in Silicon Valley for having no business plan, has raised billions in venture capital funding; $800m in funding alone this summer, with $400m used to pay off existing shareholders.
But Twitter's aim is to become a company that can cut venture capitalist funding and rely solely on advertisements. "We need to be a successful business", Costolo said, highlighting that the company would need to be dependent on this kind of revenue to succeed.
The recent fundraising put the microblogging giant at an estimated worth of $8 billion, according to the FT, but revenues are expected only to reach $150m-$200m.
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