Benchmark Capital

There's a lot of tweeting about the micro-blogging company behind the tweets. Twitter closed an estimated $100 million round of funding Friday and its valuation soared to $1 billion.

With 40 million users and still growing, Twitter has not only grabbed the attention of technology giants, including Facebook, Google and Microsoft, which have reportedly offered to acquire the company, but attention from investors. Insight Venture Partners, T. Rowe Price, Institutional Venture Partners, Spark Capital, and Benchmark Capital have acquired a piece of the Twitter pie coveted by the tech giants.

Silicon Valley once thought it could replace the old-fashioned Realtor, touring would-be buyers around town in a well-worn Mercedes, with online agents working remotely for cut-rate commissions. It hasn't worked out that way.

ZipRealty and privately held Redfin, two firms slugging it out in the online realty business, are posting some better numbers recently. But both have had to change their business models radically, making them look a lot more like the traditional real estate agencies they once hoped to put out of business.

Twitter Inc. has spawned a new way to communicate by limiting messages to 140 keystrokes. So here's a way to describe the Internet's latest craze within Twitter's space restrictions:

It's a potluck of pithy self-expression simmering with whimsy, narcissism, voyeurism, hucksterism, tedium and sometimes useful information.

One vital ingredient has been missing from the mix so far -- revenue. That raises questions about whether the nearly 3-year-old service can make the leap from intriguing fad to sustainable business.

Matt Cohler, a pivotal player in Facebook Inc.'s rapid growth, is departing the popular online hangout to find other promising Internet startups for a prominent venture capital firm.

Cohler will remain Facebook's vice president of product management through the summer and then become a general partner at Benchmark Capital, according to a Thursday announcement.

Even after joining Benchmark, Cohler will remain a "special adviser" to Facebook's 24-year-old founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg.