I agree with you regarding Twitter's monetization opportunity; they're barely scratching the surface of what's possible, hiring like crazy (most of the expense), etc.
What seems odd to me is that they're filing for IPO right now. Do they honestly expect public markets to buy their "but it's becoming ubiquitous" story? 2000 wasn't that long ago.
Doing IPO means raising money from public markets. So with IPO money, they believe they can buy lot of companies, hire people and make it really profitable business.
FB/Google/LinkedIn didn't have to go public but they had to due to SEC regulations and/or their existing investors.
What seems odd to me is that they're filing for IPO right now. Do they honestly expect public markets to buy their "but it's becoming ubiquitous" story? 2000 wasn't that long ago.