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Twitter announces, in tweet, plans for IPO

“Twitter has firmly established itself as a social tool that people love to use and that the press loves to reference – and more than 60 percent of US marketers are now on Twitter as well,” said Nate Elliott, analyst at Forrester Research.

“And Twitter works hard to serve those marketers: the company learned how to sell sponsored tweets without upsetting users, when critics weren’t sure it was possible, and it offers more useful marketing measurement tools than bigger competitors like Facebook.”

But Elliott said Twitter need to do more to demonstrate it is a viable business.

“Marketers aren’t yet fully satisfied with the results they’re achieving on Twitter, and the company still has to improve its ad targeting and find additional ad formats to sell,” he said.

“If this move helps them grow the business faster and focus on those challenges that’ll be good news not just for Twitter but also for the marketers who use the site.”

The company was started by Jack Dorsey who proposed the idea for Twitter while working with Biz Stone and Evan Williams at podcasting company Odeo. Dorsey later stepped aside to run another startup, Square.

A year ago, chief executive Dick Costolo said the time was not ripe for a Twitter IPO but indicated Twitter would remain independent.
Some of the concerns over social media companies have faded with Facebook, whose shares lost 50 percent after its May 2012 IPO, hitting an all-time high in recent days.

Facebook shares debuted at $38, and languished for months before recovering this year. Facebook hit a record above $45 this week, and closed Thursday at $44.75.

According to the analytics site Dashburst, at least 170 billion tweets have been posted since the company’s launch in 2006, with users spending an average of 170 minutes on the site each month.

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Dashburst estimates 80 percent of Twitter users access the site via a mobile device.

The most popular person on Twitter is Justin Bieber, with some 44 million followers, while Katy Perry has 42 million and Lady Gaga 40 million, all ahead of President Barack Obama at 36 million.

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