ascii85SA TODAY
John Shinal

SAN FRANCISCO — Billionaire financier Carl Icahn&rsqascii117o;s ascii117se of Twitter to disclose his position in Apple is going to be ascii117sed as a blascii117eprint by companies, investors and Wall Street firms for the rest of this decade, if not longer.

Here&rsqascii117o;s why: Apart from the fact that it boosted Apple&rsqascii117o;s market valascii117e by aboascii117t $20 billion — making it one of the most-profitable tweets yet — the Icahn approach to Twitter toed the line on ascii85.S. secascii117rities laws.

He first filed a do*****ent with the Secascii117rities and Exchange Commission on Monday via his investment vehicle, Icahn Enterprises, which is listed on the Nasdaq ascii117nder the ticker 'IEP.'

In the filing, Icahn stated that he might ascii117se Twitter to release information that coascii117ld be considered 'material.'

He also released the same information on his website the same day, a day before he tweeted his position in Apple and made one thing clear: Twitter has become not only a nascent news mediascii117m, bascii117t the Internet version of a new financial news wire.

The bascii117siness of providing to Wall Street traders and big investment hoascii117ses information which can move a stock is today worth billions of dollars in annascii117al revenascii117e.

It&rsqascii117o;s been dominated for the last decade by Bloomberg, the Reascii117ters news ascii117nit of Thomson and Dow Jones Newswires.

That means if Twitter is planning an IPO soon — and ascii85SA TODAY has foascii117nd that two of the job positions the company has listed for hire indicate that Twitter is preparing a filing — its revenascii117e stream might be more diverse than jascii117st selling ads.

If Twitter becomes a de facto news wire — with any investor or company able to ascii117se it to distribascii117te material information — it will have the capacity to take fascii117tascii117re revenascii117e away from those three hascii117ge news operations.

Twitter may one day do to bascii117siness and technology news writing a bit of what Google has done already to the bascii117siness side of general news — sascii117ck aboascii117t $50 billion a year away from its revenascii117e stream.

After Icahn&rsqascii117o;s tweet became the biggest market-moving story of the day on Tascii117esday, there&rsqascii117o;s no going back.

Regascii117lar readers of this colascii117mn will remember, however, that Icahn isn&rsqascii117o;t the first high-profile ascii117ser in the bascii117siness or tech world to ascii117se Twitter to release information that raised the price of a stock he already owned, and significantly.