The Twitter IPO: everything you need to know in 140 character chunks

Unlike the Facebook IPO, it’s going to be really, really hard for you to avoid any news surrounding Twitter’s coming of age — “TWTR”, Twitter’s New York Stock Exchange trading symbol, is trending on, yup, you guessed it, Twitter.

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Patrick Stewart, better knowns as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the “Star Trek” series, was joined by Vivienne Harr, a tween who set up a lemonade stand for a year to protest slavery, and a representative of the Boston Police Department to ring the opening bell on Twitter’s behalf. It’s less random than you think — they are all Twitter users.

Despite all the blah blah, Twitter’s big day doesn’t affect how you and I use Twitter right now. Maybe things will change next year as Twitter tries to appease not only its users anymore, but also its investors. Publicly.

In the meanwhile check out these 140 character bullet points.

Twitter started trading today on the New York Stock Exchange under the TWTR symbol.

The expected opening price was US$26 at a $18-billion valuation (fully diluted shares).

The actual price was US$45.10 at a US$31-billion valuation.

On average, stock “pops” around 17% above its estimated opening price, Twitter’s price was 74% higher.

Twitter raised about US$1.82-billion at at US$26 per share.

The jump in starting price means that Twitter could have raised an additional US$1.3 billion.

Twitter is selling 70-million shares of common stock.

Co-founder Evan Williams owns a 10.4% stake (56 909 847 shares) not including options.

Co-founder Jack Dorsey owns 23 453 017 shares.

CEO Dick Costolo owns 7 675 239 shares.

Co-founder Biz Stone owns zero shares.

Top executives and directors will make more than US$3.24-billion based on the US$26 per share price.

With 230-million monthly active users, Twitter is still not profitable.

Twitter’s stock value is based largely on the ability of the service to grow.

Analysts have conflicting growth estimates. Generally Twitter is predicted to grow 80% next year. More sober outlooks predict 55%.