Twitter Discloses IPO Plans.

Twitter has taken the cover off its initial public offering, making public its prospectus and setting the clock on one of the most anticipated stock sales of the year. Twitter’s prospectus — whose filing was initially disclosed in a 135-character post on its own service last month — offers the fullest look yet at the privately held company. But what has emerged may raise questions about its future prospects, as the company’s growth appears to be smaller than anticipated. It reported 215 million average monthly users.
Twitter reported revenue of $317 million in 2012, and $253 million for the first six months of this year. Twitter now has about three weeks until it kicks off a road show to potential investors across the country, in what is expected to be a series of standing-room-only meetings. The company has hoped to complete its offering by Thanksgiving, people briefed on the matter have said. But if the markets prove unwelcoming — a possibility if the government shutdown goes on for weeks — the company is likely to postpone the offering until next year. Founded seven years ago as a side project in a floundering start-up, it is now one of the world’s biggest public forums, ranking alongside Facebook. And aspects of the service, like hashtags denoting specific discussion topics, have infiltrated popular culture. The company has turned its deceptively simple product, short messages no longer than 140 characters, into a global phenomenon used by more than 200 million users. It has found a way to make that business profitable through advertising, notably through so-called sponsored tweets that resemble regular users’ posts.
NYN.