There's almost no way Twitter will go public this year, according to the company's COO, and it may not do so in the next couple of years, either.  The focus, instead, is supposed to be on firming up and building out the business side of things.

According to Brian Womack and Cris Valerio, Dick Costolo said yesterday at a Bloomberg event, "My view of our financial future is like that old New Yorker cover where the New Yorker looks at the view of the United States and the IPO is way out west somewhere.  Bronx and Queens are our 2010 financial plan, and that's what we're focused on right now."

Costolo, who joined Twitter about four months ago after working for Google and cofounding FeedBurner, also stated, "We have to catch up to our valuation.  We've raised all this money.  We've created this global brand.  It's one of the fastest - if not the fastest - growing brands in the history of the world.  Now we have to go build the business that lives up to that valuation."

These announcements may come as a relief to Twitter fans who don't want to see it become part of another tech bubble.  Or they might disappoint, since a lot of folks would probably prefer to see Twitter straighten out its revenue problems in the very near future.

Anyway, ads and paid accounts are still the first things Twitter intends to try in its search for a steady stream of money.

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