#TwitterIPO; Social media network going public.

• Author: Ortutay, Barbara
• Position: Business

Byline: Barbara Ortutay and Michael Liedtke

NEW YORK -- Twitter has decided to go public. The company aptly announced on its short messaging service Thursday afternoon that it has filed documents for an initial public offering of stock.

San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. posted on its official Twitter account that it has ''confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO.''

The documents Twitter filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission are sealed, as Twitter is taking advantage of federal legislation passed last year that allows companies with less than $1 billion in revenue in its last fiscal year to avoid submitting public IPO documents.

The confidentiality will likely help Twitter avoid the public hoopla and intense scrutiny that surrounded the initial public offerings of other high-profile social networking companies, including Facebook Inc., which went public in May 2012.

Under the law, Twitter's financial statements and other sensitive information contained in the IPO filing must become publicly available at least 21 days before company's executives begin traveling around the country to meet with potential investors -- a process known as a ''road show.''

Twitter's IPO has been long expected. The company has been ramping up its advertising products and working to boost ad revenue in preparation. But it is still tiny compared with Facebook, which saw its hotly anticipated IPO implode last year amid worries about its ability to grow mobile ad revenue.

Most of Twitter's revenue comes from advertising. Research firm eMarketer estimates that Twitter will generate $582.8 million...