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Twitter force-fed $35m in venture capital

Web2.0rhea king mocks Meltdown

Amidst the deepest world financial crisis since The Great Depression, Twitter has landed another $35 million in funding.

Co-founder Biz Stone claims his Web2.0rhea outfit wasn't looking for more financing. But two separate venture capitalists insisted, defying countless claims that tech VC is drying up. And according to Silicon Valley Insider, it was a $35 million force-feeding.

"We weren't actively seeking more funding because significant capital from last year's partnership with [Boston-based VC Spark Capital] is still in the bank," Stone said, with a (macro) bog post this morning. "Nevertheless, our strong growth attracted interest and we decided to accept a unique opportunity to make Twitter even stronger with a very attractive offer."

The click mavens at Hitwise claim that Twitter is now the 84th most visited site on the web. And according to Stone, this only begins to explain the popularity of his microbogger.

"Twitter is growing at a phenomenal rate," he burbles. "Active users have increased 900% in a year and even though our web traffic is amazing, we see twice that traffic to the APIs. Interacting with Twitter over SMS is also getting more popular every day. Our relatively small team of 29 employees has accomplished quite a bit lately but it's obvious that we have the world ahead of us."

Twitter is a way of bombarding the world with an endless stream of self-serving mini-messages. Many people enjoy this Web2.0rhea, on both phones and PCs. But for Biz Stone and company, it pulls in exactly zero dollars a month in revenue.

But since the fall, the company has hinted at the imminent arrival of some mystery money-making magic. "We are now positioned extremely well to support the accelerating growth of our service, further enable the robust ecosystem sprouting up around Twitter, and yes, to begin building revenue-generating products," Stone wrote this morning.

But many wonder whether it's possible to make money from Web2.0rhea. Since it's already free, you can't charge for it. You can't inject an ad into a 140-character mini-message. And you can't send ads as standalone messages. That's called spam.

Some argue the company may develop some sort of business-related service and start charging for that. But odds are, Stone and company will finally make their money by selling themselves to Google.

So that was $35 million well spent. ®

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