Will a successful Twitter I.P.O. inspire a new crop of tech start-ups to go public? Investors are certainly hoping so, as The New York Times’ Dealbook blog reports. “Investors and deal makers are hoping that Twitter’s coming stock sale will help the once-soaring technology sector take flight again,” it writes. “Analysts have estimated that Twitter… could be valued at more than $10 billion and raise hundreds of millions of dollars … manna to a landscape that has been a bit barren lately.” 

Privately, tech giants like Google and Facebook tell Reuters that business hasn’t suffered due to their connection to the NSA’s spying program. “Insiders at companies that offer remote computing services known as cloud computing, including Amazon and Microsoft Corp, also say they are seeing no fallout,” Reuters reports. 

Melding terrestrial radio with digital, Cumulus Media is partnering up with Rdio. “In exchange for what it calls a significant equity stake in Rdio’s parent company, Pulser Media, Cumulus will give Rdio broad access to its programming and promote Rdio on its station,” The New York Times reports, adding that the deal is the result of two trends: radio broadcasters going digital, and online music services trying to distinguish themselves. 

Tumblr has selected DataSift to help provide consumer engagement analytics. TechCrunch sees the deal as closely connected to Yahoo’s big plans to monetize Tumblr following its acquisition of the blogging platform for $1.1 billion. “This is essential data for brands and their ad partners when looking to buy ads against the 5.5 billion interactions that happen each month on Tumblr,” TechCrunch writes. 

Circa is expanding to users’ desktops. The startup, which specializes in mobile news consumption, is launching its online platform for following and sharing news, TechCrunch reports. “The mission of Circa News, the startup’s iOS app, is to give readers the main points of each relevant news story,” it reports. “The Circa website will allow users to access the news they want more often.” 

Lost in all the excitement over its IPO plans, Twitter just. rolled out its own Spotify app. “Twitter’s Spotify app slices the music it sees #nowplaying on Twitter, as well as on other sources like blogs, into five chart pages,” Evolver.fm reports. As the blog notes, the design quite similar to We Are Hunted, the music discover service that Twitter bought in 2012. 

With Twitter’s IPO in sight, users can expect sweeping service changes from the microblogging leader. “Twitter … is set for a radical redesign sometime soon,” according to The New Yorker’s Matt Buchanan. “The company’s finances are set to change; but its looks may be changing just as much.” How so? “What’s coming next is a more graphically intense Twitter that is marked by fundamental transformation of its core experience on mobile phones,” Buchanan predicts. 

Raining on Twitter’s IPO parade, AllThingsD questions whether the company can grow fast enough to please public investors. “There are signs that the company isn’t adding users at the pace it had expected,” it writes. Earlier this year, CEO Dick Costolo reportedly predicted that Twitter would reach 400 million users before 2014. Yet, according to sources, Twitter is now on pace to hit just 260 million users by the end of the year.  

Worldwide, Yahoo Web traffic has exceeded 800 million monthly active users -- which represents a 20% increase since July 2012, according to Marissa Mayer. Dishing during the TechCrunch Disrupt conference on Wednesday, Yahoo’s CEO “attributed the bulk of the growth to mobile traffic,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “About 350 million monthly users come from mobile gadgets … She said that they’ve expanded the mobile team by a factor of 10 since her arrival.” 

ZDNet’s May Jo Foley digs into Cortana -- rumored to be Microsoft’s response to popular personal assistants like Apple’s Siri and Google Now. “Cortana … will be able to learn and adapt, relying on machine-learning technology and the ‘Satori’ knowledge repository powering Bing,” Foley reports. “Cortana is core to the makeover of the entire ‘shell’ … of the future versions of Windows Phone, Windows and the Xbox One operating systems.”