Without even using all 140 characters, Twitter made its future business plans clear tonight with a single tweet. The microblogging giant is going public.
We’ve known for some time now than an IPO was inevitable for the seven-year-old social network, but only this week did the company formally file the necessary paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to begin the process of going public.
Twitter, however, is largely operating under a cloak of secrecy at this stage. And it’s legally allowed to do so.
“Twitter is taking advantage of federal legislation passed last year that allows companies with less than $1 billion in revenue in its last fiscal year to avoid submitting public IPO documents,” the AP reports.
Shortly after the announcement Thursday, MMW spoke with Howie Schwartz, founder and CEO of Human Demand. Schwartz didn’t seemed surprised by the news.
“Twitter announcing its filing to go public was expected,” he said. “The timing is really interesting as it is days after buying Mopub, which was a great move in strengthening their mobile ad positioning prior to going public and the same week Facebook stock hit new highs.”
“Twitter clearly learned from Facebook that getting your ‘mobile ad house in order’ prior to going public was critical, as this is what has led the recovery of Facebook in the market,” Schwartz adds. “Twitter will be a major player in the mobile ad space by leveraging its rich audience data and focusing on its newly announced mobile exchange ambitions with the Mopub acquisition.”
At present, the bulk of Twitter’s revenue comes from advertising. Twitter is expected to generate $582.8 million in global ad revenue this year, roughly double its 2012 revenue.
