I’ve been commenting on other people’s blogs for long enough on this subject, so I’m going to try to formulate my thoughts more concisely with some blogs about it.  Twitter and Facebook have long been dubbed the social internet, but their true value is really that they are the pioneers of the now internet.

I think the internet business is about to go through a vast reorientation around the “now” - piggybacking on twittering, facebooking and blogging.   What’s going on now, meaning this second, is soon going to be the first thing that someone will ask when going to a website.   Publishing and dissemination of this information, what goes out and to whom, is at the center of this change.  We want the right information to go to the right people, and that can get complicated.

Twitter, FB, and blog updates have paved the way, but they don’t have the resources or infrastructure to provide the full breadth of this functionality to companies, groups and organizations.  A company has employees, officers, managers, customers, clients, board members as well as campaigns, promotions, projects, events and initiatives.  A company also has the media and financial markets to consider in its communications: reporters, analysts, investors, potential investors, and traders. There are official company announcements, which might be internal or external, and there are communications created by individual people.  Individual people’s communications can be as relevant as official company pronouncements.

All of this “now” information is not encompassed by any company, not Twitter, not Google.  Much more infrastructure is needed to achieve effective publishing and sorting of this data into what will be the now internet.

I have been pulling for a Google acquisition of Twitter, although at the same time am beginning to see far greater opportunities with the IPO-ing of now internet companies.  This brings fresh blood and renewed investment interest from the war-torn small investor.

Fred Wilson’s blog post today predicts end of the IPO drought is coming.   Realistically, Twitter has nowhere near the revenue to do a classic IPO, but they have far more depth of market penetration into the psyche of the general population than most IPOs.  (I remember when my mom bought CNS stock in the late 80s when she saw football players wearing BreatheRight strips)

Raising capital with a public valuation sooner rather than later may provide far greater bang for the buck in terms of building infrastructure and staff to meet the needs of the market where its best opportunity exists.  If Google is the internet’s juggernaut of today (the distribution outlet, the lens, the tool, the screen, whatever metaphor one wants to use), Twitter has the potential to hold that same place as the juggernaut of tomorrow, the cornerstone of the now internet.

Currently, Twitter provides both the “pipe” and the “search lens” for the now internet - which at the expansion levels seen, is overwhelming to one company of 40 or so people.   One thing to consider is that Google provides only the “search lens” for the data, and wouldn’t conceive of trying to be the “pipe” at the same time; that infrastructure is layered into what comprises the vast majority of internet companies.

Facebook and Twitter IPOs open doors to a slew of new business opportunities for laying the foundation of what will be the backbone of the now internet.  IPO-able companies/software in this space are Twitter and Facebook, and perhaps for external communications and 37Signals on the internal corporate communications side.

On their own, these companies cannot effectively cover the needs of the now internet market.  Hopefully we will be seeing launches of companies that will be agencies, software providers, SaaS and infrastructure companies to grow the market out of it’s “social networking” roots and into the far bigger “now internet” space.  It will be interesting to watch companies that are providing financing to this space like Union Square Ventures and early stage groups like Social Leverage.