Earlier today, another public firm, TW Telecom, became another victim of the highly anticipated Twitter IPO (Initial Public Offering). Following the case of investors buying Tweeter shares because of the similarity of its ticker (TWTRQ) to Twitter’s (TWTR), TW Telecom, which trades under the ticker “TWTC”, saw a sudden rise today in the value of its stock from “from $30 to $300 in less than a minute” and forced the NASDAQ to cancel trades.
The buildup towards Twitter’s IPO has caused a frenzy among investors but these purchases of shares in companies with similar names to Twitter may strengthen Twitter’s brand. With all the hype and interest in Twitter going public, Twitter may start to look attractive to even more investors now when they see how much people want to buy shares – to the point that they buy in the wrong company.
This presents another factor consumers might consider as well. If Twitter’s image is strengthened by these, it might become more attractive for people to use it as a social networking platform. Twitter could possibly use this in their own strategies to gain even more users on their services and become more competitive against other online services such as Facebook.