The $1.8 billion question: what will Twitter be & do after its IPO?

I plan to retain the original name of this blog to remind me of this project's original purpose. That said, it is going to have to veer--at least for a while--into an effort to track the changes to the microblogging environment created by the pressures of becoming a publicly-traded company.

You can start by firing up Twitter and searching #ring

This Vine says it all: https://vine.co/v/hIJ2HgOPUmE

Twitter cannot possibly remain the same. Now it must stop losing, and begin to make, money. Can it do that and remain as fluid and adaptable a platform for all of the things I have observed that this technology & the community it has built have been able to accomplish in the past six years?

Like journalism, and human beings, I will predict that whatever the answer, it will not be dull.

AS A STARTING POINT: I offer this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/10306627/Twitter-IPO-14-fun-facts.html piece from the Telegraph, for which I give thanks to the Globe and Mail media reporter and pundit, Steve Ladurantaye.

[His excellent media blog can be found here: http://www.steveladurantaye.ca/

Although it is not about Twitter, & therefore presents a digression from the purpose of GTEX2012, it's worth reading for industry insights and imaginative posts such as this: http://www.steveladurantaye.ca/word-cloud-toronto-mayor-rob-fords-onair-apology/ ]

I will also link to this document, which, while it is the last thing anybody would be finding their way to this little blog in search of--because people who care about the fascinating crumbs at the bottom of the deep documentary dish will have already read this--I will add it nonetheless because I believe that nobody should ever make up their minds about anything until they have read all the regulated disclosure documents:

The Twitter Prospectus. Read it and what? ponder; speculate? watch this space:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513431301/d564001d424b4.htm

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Twitterature: Film maker Steven Soderbergh writes a novella, "Glue", 140 characters at a time, on Twitter

Soderbergh (Sex, Lies & Videotape; Erin Brockovitch; Oceans 11, 12 & 13; Out of Sight; Side Effects) has announced his retirement from big-screen/cinematic film making (although he is, interestingly, writing, directing and producing for television) has also turned to Twitter as a medium that offers him room for artistic expression, beyond--or different from--the ones he has employed in the past.

Like everything Soderbergh does: intriguing. And ultra cool.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/books/soderbergh-explores-a-new-medium.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

GTEX 2013: Twitter+data mining/management+graphic software=illustration of collective thinking

THIS is an amazing use of Twitter, via @DougSaunders

This strikes me as being right up there. a.k.a., as intriguing and useful, as the work Stanford is doing with predictive social network analysis*:

https://twitter.com/pewresearch/status/327489171633627136/photo/1

Pew Research graphic: See our graphic illustrating the shifting conversaton on #Twitter about #GunControl http://pewrsr.ch/ZmHGls  pic.twitter.com/0BAxUwOUr5

*http://www.cbc.ca/spark/full-interviews/2011/09/23/jure-leskovec-on-predictive-social-network-analysis/

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