Twitter Inc. gained more than 100 million registered members this year and approached the new year with a fresh investment of $200 million. Now the San Francisco firm must prove it can live up to its
newly elevated valuation of $3.7 billion. "2011 is the year where they're going to need to increase their user base pretty dramatically and prove to advertisers that Twitter advertising works," said
Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with the online research firm eMarketer.
In 2010, Twitter pushed its role as an important source of news and information, which turns the
140-character message into a new mass-media channel. It introduced new advertising platforms called Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts. Only 8% of adult Internet users in the
United States - equal to about 6% of the overall adult population - use Twitter. The question remains, however, whether Twitter can find ways to leverage that influence to make money.
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