Twitter To Remain An Independent Company
Twitter Inc. co-founder Biz Stone is downplaying tech industry rumors that the company is seeking new owners and emphasizes that Twitter values its independence.
“I believe there is a lot of room for another internet giant to succeed,” Stone said Thursday to AP. “So our goal with Twitter is, has been, and will continue to be to remain an independent company no matter what rumors are swirling.”
Responding to a question from a participant about speculation in the media that Google or Facebook were seeking to acquire the privately held social networking service, Stone commented that Twitter has no plan to go public in the near future and does not need additional funds because it is making money, he told Reuters.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Google and Facebook have both held talks with Twitter about a purchase.
“There’s always another rumor that somebody’s trying to acquire us,” Stone said. “But our goal is to have a positive impact on the world, build a wonderful business on top of that and have a blast doing it. That’s always been our goal. That’s what we want to do.”
Twitter, allows users to send 140-character text messages, or Tweets, to followers and is one of the Web’s most popular social networking services along with Facebook and LinkedIn and had 175 million users as of September. Twitter has become a very effective and popular communication tool for celebrities, politicians and businesses, and played a key role in several geopolitical events including the recent uprisings in the Middle East.
“Throughout 2008, 2009 and 2011, with so many things around the world somehow Twitter has found its way. Every single one of these things was just another amazing eye opening moment for us, making us realize that the open exchange of information really can have a positive global impact all around the world,” Stone said Thursday.
Social networking company valuations have soared recently, with Facebook’s $1.5 billion round of financing led by Goldman Sachs giving the firm a projected value of $50 billion.
“We make money. We earn money from a suite of products — We have promoted tweets … promoted accounts, all of which are in our advertising mechanism,” Stone tells AP. “We are just really getting started. We have some internal forecasts (for advertising revenue for 2011) but nothing is really shared right now. We don’t need to set the world record or anything like that.”
eMarketer, a tech industry research firm said in January that Twitter, while not providing financial information, generated an estimated $45 million from advertising in 2010 and was expected to generate about $150 million this year.
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