The world's second largest social network, Twitter, has successfully secured a $300 million investment from Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed.
The investment transaction is the final stage of several months of planning and negotiations between both Prince Alwaleed and Twitter. As one of the world's biggest and fastest growing social networks, Twitter will be using the money to improve their networking experience. With new features such as the iPhone and #newlook Twitter in the pipelines, this huge cash injection will be much appreciated in helping implement them and in brainstorming Twitter's direction and plans for 21012.
Prince Alwaleed's Interest In Twitter
As one of the richest men in the world, Prince Alwaleed is certainly in a position to be able to invest in what he wants, when he wants. Twitter is a natural choice because there is no way of disputing that it's a growing social network as well an excellent place for business to make money. And if businesses can harvest the power of Twitter, Twitter can use this to their advantage and monopolise it, meaning this is one investment he probably wont regret. Twitter is a giant in the field that knows it can make money to continue and rival its main competitor, Facebook.
Our investment in Twitter reaffirms our ability in identifying suitable opportunities to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact," Prince Alwaleed ~ Courtesy of BBC News Online
Key Take Away
With such a large sum of money now in Twitter's pockets, we look forward to hearing about how it will spend it and on what. After all, businesses tend to ensure that when they move forward, their customers and users are the one who benefit. Will we see amazing new changes in interface, reliability and customer service? As someone who works with Twitter on a day to day basis, I know we have all come to love the "Fail Whale", particularly when the US wakes up and logs in. Maybe someone at Twitter will hear my plea? ;) It remains to be seen but we look forward to what 2012 will bring us.
~Articles mentioned in this post: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16241581
~Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gagedesoto