Nothing from nothing leaves $100 million

Rich people still are different from the rest of us. Perhaps that's the best explanation yet for why venture capitalists ponied up an additional $100 million on Thursday for a bit of Twitter, the wildly popular Internet microblogging service. Twitter, a Web startup that lets people express themselves in 140 words or less, has attracted millions of users in its three and a half-year existence but no known revenue. The new cash infusion is expected to raise the value of the company to $1 billion, even though it only has 60 employees and does not plan to begin accepting advertising revenue until next year, according to the New York Times. Twitter's valuation is apparently based in large part on the numerous takeover offers it has received, notably from its chief rival, Facebook, and as well from Google and Microsoft. “Twitter is so likely to be successful at this point, it is almost impossible to envision a way in which Facebook can truly monopolize online content-sharing,” Keith Rabois, the vice president of strategy at Web social entertainment firm Slide, told the Times. Facebook has more than 300 million users but its continued domination of Web social networking appears to face a serious challenge from Twitter. “There have probably been less than five examples of companies that have grown like Twitter has,” John Borthwick of Betaworks told the Times. Betaworks created the link-shortening service Bit.ly. Twitter is "a new layer of innovation on the Internet," Borthwick said. “This investment is happening because it represents a shift.” And just who are the new investors? They include Insight Venture Partners, a New York company, mutual fund giant T. Rowe Price and current backers Spark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners, the Times said.

Cyber attack on Twitter, Facebook was much ado about little

Sure, it was annoying to be kept off the Twitter microblogging site for hours on Thursday. But unless it was your responsibility to keep Twitter and at least two other social networking sites -- Facebook and LiveJournal -- free from so-called Denial of Service attacks, you weren't harmed in any way. So why all the outage outrage? According to the Cable News Network CNN), some users of the social networking sites reacted with "near-panic" to being unable to use the services. Such sites have proved themselves extremely valuable for promoting businesses and causes, and for finding and keeping in touch with long-lost and newfound friends, but what explains the odd reaction or, rather, overreaction? Okay, this probably was the first time most Internet users have dealt with such an attack on a site they use, but this is part of the new world of the Web. Everyone tries to protect their computers from being compromised cyberthreats that were unknown a decade ago; even Twitter, the target of the attack, understood that this was part the risks inherent to such enterprises. "Attacks such as this are malicious efforts orchestrated to disrupt and make unavailable services such as online banks, credit card payment gateways, and in this case, Twitter for intended customers or users," Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told CNN in an e-mail. "We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we defend and later investigate." That's right. It's part of the business, and hunting down the perpetrators is part of that, too. No surprise, no panic. Computer users should remember that the ubiquitous Internet is a relatively recent phenomenon and that there were plenty of things to do before social networking, and still are. The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team told CNN that it is impossible to fully prevent such attacks but said computer users should keep their antivirus software updated and their firewalls properly maintained.

Twitter looks to turn Internet popularity into cash

Word that Internet startup Twitter is looking at ways to make money should come as no surprise -- any of the millions of people who already enjoy the service know it doesn't them anything and there is no advertising. The cash has to come from somewhere. So, Twitter says it is looking for ways to make money from commercial applications of its service, which allows people to send short messages to whomever is also on the service, according to what the company told the Reuters international news service by e-mail. "We think there will be opportunities to provide services to commercial entities that help them get even more value out of Twitter," said Biz Stone, a company co-founder. "If these services are valuable to companies, we think they may want to pay for them." The San Francisco-based startup has boomed in popularity over the past year, logging 7 million unique visitors in February compared with 475,000 in Feb. 2008, Reuters said. Many of the country's -- and the world's -- most powerful political leaders already have Twitter accounts that allow them to connect directly with voters. Of course, it's usually not the actual leader online but one of his or her assistants. But the principle -- reaching your audience without expensive and often misdirected advertising -- is the same. Twitter reportedly turned down a $500 million buyout offer from Facebook last year and is said to be being looked at by Google as a potential acquisition. Twitter is expected to begin rolling out its commercial enhancements sometime this year, Stone told Reuters. But there is a lot of competition in messaging and Twitter will have to be very careful not to kill the golden tweet.