Twitter Twits

You may have noticed that Twitter shares hit the stock market today. They opened at $26 each at the New York Stock Exchange and by the time trading closed had hit $45.10, a rise of 80% (CLICK). Why on earth are punters buying shares in a company that has never made a profit and lost $69m in the first six months of 2013? Twitter has more than 230 million users who send 500 million tweets a day. So, there is potentially a huge user base for advertisers. That's the lure. But if users have to wade through a forest of adverts to post their tweets of 140 words or less, will they bother or go elsewhere?