The biggest misconception about Twitter? “That you have to tweet to use Twitter,” said CEO Dick Costolo in a "fireside chat" with Federated Media's John Battelle this week. Indeed, new research from Beevolve finds that 25 percent of Twitter users have never tweeted.

Costolo’s newfound celebrity on magazine covers, The Today Show, Charlie Rose, as well as a recent New York Times profile, is impressive for a brand that didn’t exist seven years ago. Now, it's up to an estimated revenue of $350 million this year and 140 million users, even as Wall Street and Silicon Valley mull over engagement and the "dark social" arts of social marketing. Twitter, meanwhile, is trying to get smarter about providing support and analytics to brand marketers grappling with the age-old question of demonstrating ROI.Continue reading...

Avon's Jung to leave board early, shifting focus to new CEO.

Mondelez creates Oreo and Cadbury Dairy Milk hybrid chocolate bar, acquires Italian biscuit maker from Danone.

Foxconn faces more unrest at iPhone factory as new battle brews between Apple and Samsung.

BAE deal with EADS is questioned by major shareholder.

Baxter looks to its medical-product pipeline to sustain growth.

Budweiser donates to military families via tie-in with Major League Baseball.

BuzzFeed bets on online sharing of sponsored content.

Coca-Cola India signs Bollywood star Salman Khan as brand ambassador.Continue reading...

At the Cannes Lions "festival of creativity" (advertising, and marketing) in France this week, Facebook and Twitter are jousting for the spotlight. With festival attendance at an all-time high, up from 9,000 delegates in 2011 to almost 11,000 this year, the exposure to marketers and creatives makes it well worth elbowing the rosé-imbibing crowds on the Croisette.

Twitter, which has been promoting the #CannesLions hashtag on a special page, hoisted its newly spiffed up blue bird logo at the entrance to the Palais de Festivals welcoming attendees and none too subtly reminding them to keep tweeting. 

Cofounder Jack Dorsey, at Cannes for the first time, tweeted the photo at top. He will receive the Cannes Lions “media person of the year” award (previously bestowed on Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Eric Schmidt and Microsoft's Steve Ballmer), while Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is set to give the keynote on Wednesday.Continue reading...

As Occupy Wall Street protesters marched in the streets of Manhattan on Mayday, another group of agitators were on stage touting disruption of a different kind.

Among the speakers at Wired's Disruptive by Design conference, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo drew a lot of attention for his somewhat contrarian views. With Facebook's IPO looming, he rejected the notion that his social enterprise is missing out on an IPO window, saying, "We don't see any need or urgency to even think about that stuff…I'm never going to optimize for short-term revenue at the expense of user experience. If people think we're going too cautiously, I don't care. They can stay on the sidelines. 

Costolo added that with $1 billion in venture funds in its coffers, "We don't need to worry about financing now. Google went public on its own terms. If you have a great business, you can be a public company whenever you want to be a public company. You're not beholden to a window."Continue reading...

Twitter is closing in on an $800 million funding deal, $400 million of which will be used to cash out current investors and employees.

Aside from additional revenue, the move will allow current stakeholders to monetize privately held common stock, as the company will probably not file for an IPO in the immediate future.

“Once the latest investments are complete, Twitter’s total cash haul since it was founded five years ago will be $760 million,” according to AllThingsD.

Current investors Benchmark Capital, Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, and other venture capitalists will be joined, going forward, by Russian heavyweight DST Global, an investor in Facebook, Zynga and Groupon. Continue reading...

Twitter celebrated turning five today with a segment on ABC's Good Morning America and a video, above, that highlights the reasons why a cross-section of users (including Richard Branson, Snoop Dogg, Hillary Clinton, Martha Stewart, Serena Williams) are fans of the micromessaging social service.