Twitter Inc.'s decision to list on the New York Stock Exchangeis a victory for the Big Board that opens the door for moreInternet listings.

Twitter, which announced the decision in a regulatory filingyesterday, joins Pandora Media Inc., LinkedIn Corp. and Yelp Inc.as Internet companies that chose the NYSE since 2011. While NasdaqOMX Group Inc. scored a coup by landing the Facebook Inc. initialpublic offering in 2012, its reputation was tarnished by a softwaremalfunction that delayed trading for the social network.Competition for IPOs is critical for both exchanges, which getabout a fifth of revenue from listing fees.

“Companies like to list where other, similar companies arelisted,” Richard Kline, a Menlo Park, California-based partner atthe Goodwin Procter law firm who focuses on technology companyfunding, said in a phone interview. “Anybody associated with theoffering will get an uplift from it, and next time they meet with acompany's board they can say 'we won Twitter.'”

Twitter also said in the filing that its revenue more thandoubled to $168.6 million in the third quarter. Twitter willprobably start a roadshow with bankers to promote the deal in thelast week of October, said people with knowledge of the matter, whoasked not to be identified because the details aren't public.

“This is a decisive win for the NYSE,” the exchange operatorsaid in a statement over e-mail. “We are grateful for Twitter'sconfidence in our platform and look forward to partnering withthem.”

NYSE Euronext shares rose 1.2 percent to $44.77 at 11:47 a.m.New York time today, while Nasdaq OMX climbed 1.7 percent to$33.89.

Choosing NYSE rather than Nasdaq highlights the different pathsthat Twitter, a microblogging website whose users communicate in140-character posts known as tweets, and Facebook have taken to gopublic. Facebook chose Morgan Stanley for its listing, whileTwitter picked Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as the lead underwriter andkept a low profile during the process.

The Twitter offering, which seeks to raise more than $1 billionaccording to the people familiar with the matter, will probably beone of the year's largest. Twitter is fairly valued at about $12.8billion, based on the value of its common stock at $20.62 a shareas of August, according to a regulatory filing. There are 620million shares outstanding, people with knowledge of the matterhave said.

“All of us at Nasdaq wish Twitter well as they pursue theirinitial public offering,” Nasdaq OMX spokesman Rob Madden said.

Listings Scorecard

The 25 U.S. technology and Internet IPOs through yesterdayraised $3.9 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The competition between NYSE and Nasdaq in this area has becomeincreasingly fierce.

From 2001 through 2010, Nasdaq won 261 technology and InternetIPOs and NYSE scored about a third as many, according to datacompiled by Dealogic. Since the start of 2011 through Sept. 24 ofthis year, NYSE won 50 such listings that raised $9.38 billion,according to Dealogic, while Nasdaq secured 55 and raised $25.63billion. That figure includes the $16 billion raised by Facebookand $805 million by Groupon Inc.

Oracle Corp., the software maker with a market valuation of morethan $150 billion, moved its listing to NYSE from Nasdaq in July,the biggest company to ever switch from one exchange to theother.

Twitter said in a Sept. 12 post on its service that it hadconfidentially filed for an IPO with the U.S. Securities andExchange Commission. Twitter filed confidentially under theJumpstart Our Business Startups, or JOBS, Act, allowing the companyto keep its financial data under wraps until three weeks beforemarketing the offering to investors.

The news set off the competition for the right to host itsmarket debut. Bloomberg News reported on Sept. 24 that Twitter wasleaning toward NYSE, according to a person familiar with thematter.

Facebook's decision to list on Nasdaq was considered a win forthat exchange, with Nasdaq's stock rising 1.2 percent the day afterthe news was made public. The start of trading on May 18, 2012,went wrong when a software bug caused its delay and prevented someorders from going through. Nasdaq paid $10 million to settleregulatory charges that the error violated securities laws.

“Nasdaq won Facebook, NYSE won LinkedIn, and Groupon went toNasdaq,” Adam Sussman, director of research at Tabb Group LLC, saidin a phone interview. “In terms of social-media company listings,we're in the third inning. And with Twitter going to NYSE, I thinkwe can say it's a tie.”

Only Two

While there are 13 exchanges among the 50-some venues that tradestocks in the U.S., NYSE and Nasdaq are currently the only two thatlist companies.

Listing fees and related services made up about a fifth of 2012net revenue for both exchanges. At NYSE, that amounted to $448million of its $2.32 billion in revenue. For Nasdaq, fee- relatedsales contributed $375 million of the company's $1.66 billion innet revenue.

As the primary market for a company's stock listing, an exchangeis responsible for providing the rest of the market data such asbids and offers and the price at which shares change hands. It wasNasdaq's quote dissemination service, known as the SIP, thatcrashed on Aug. 22, causing the halt in its listed stocks thatlasted more than three hours.

Primary exchanges often also perform some investor relationsroles for their listed companies.

The company's home exchange is also a factor in each day'sclosing auctions as mutual funds and other money managers typicallyrequire the closing price on the listing exchange as the stock'sprice of record. Volume on both NYSE and Nasdaq jumps in the finalminutes of each trading session as millions of buy and sell ordersare routed their way.

Sussman said that during the regular course of trading, where acompany lists is of less importance thanks to the marketfragmentation of the past decade that's seen the U.S. stock marketgrow to more than 50 venues across the country. Over the past 20days, half of all trades in Facebook shares have taken placeoff-exchange, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The share ofthe stock's trades on the Nasdaq Stock Market was about 22percent.

“Regardless of which exchange Twitter decided to list on, it'slikely a good portion of the secondary trading won't occur at thatexchange,” he said. “While it's a win, and a highly publicized win,it means less today than it did 10 years ago.”

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