Twitter's IPO, slowly but surely, is coming.
It's still not clear when — a recent report by Bloomberg says it could come as soon as the end of the year — but the time for Twitter to make its public market debut is imminent.
How do we know? Just look at these 10 recent moves, which basically double as a preparing-to-go-public cheat sheet.
1. Hiring Nathan Hubbard
2. Hiring Vijaya Gadde
Gadde joined Twitter as legal director last year, but was thrust into a greater role when general counsel Alexander Macgillivray left the company at the end of August. Gadde is an alumnus of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and has plenty of experience to handle the upcoming IPO even without Macgillivray.
3. Emphasizing conversations
4. Buying Bluefin Labs
5. Hiring Mike Gupta
Amid a small executive shuffle late last year, Gupta took over the CFO role while Ali Rowghani took on the job of chief operating officer. Gupta, an alumnus of Yahoo, joined Twitter last year after helping take Zynga public and hammering out Yahoo's investment in Alibaba — which has proved extremely successful — according to a profile of him by Bloomberg.
6. Scoping out a financial reporting position
7. Meeting with bankers
8. Buying Trendrr
Twitter has a major presence when it comes to live televised events — like the premiere of a new show or during events like the Oscars. So, in addition to Bluefin Labs, it also purchased Trendrr, pushing its TV chatter-tracking efforts even further. If Twitter can prove to advertisers that its users are engaging with content with respect to a live event (especially television), it can make an even easier case to sell premium ads.