Goldman Sachs (GS) was among the first banks to show interest in social networks with its effort to buy into Facebook. It seems the idea is catching. Now, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) began its own fund called the Digital Growth fund, according to the Financial Times.

The fund is in talks to buy 10% of Twitter for $450 million, according to the report. That would value Twitter at $4.5 billion.

Google (GOOG) has been all over the news recently -- if it was the small acquisitions or the proposed net neutrality deal with Verizon (VZ). But perhaps more seriously are the different articles in the media about how the Web is changing and how that's going to affect the search engine giant.

The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet is the provocative title of a Wired article published Tuesday. Chris Anderson explains how we changed our habits from using the "wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display." Most importantly, he adds, "it's a world Google can't crawl."

News Corp. (NWS) and MySpace. They've been together for a while. And I have a question: Should they still be together? Is there any reason for the social networking business to be in Rupert Murdoch's empire? Personally, I don't see a rationale for keeping MySpace in the fold.

Of course, I'm sure Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller has a different opinion. In fact, in the following Reuters article, he denies rumors concerning a desire on the part of News Corp. to sell the asset. Too bad, because I think it should be sold. Seriously, my sympathies go out to anyone in charge of bringing MySpace back to relevancy.

When Twitter announced its search-based advertising model, little more than a Google (GOOG) knockoff, the market yawned. It didn't seem like much after months and months of speculation, not to mention Twitter's promises that this was something "we would love and would be awesome."

Now, the details are out, and it could be more interesting than expected. On Twitter's blog, Biz Stone lays out "Promoted Tweets," ending the jokes such as Stephen Colbert's, "So, I assume that 'Biz' in 'Biz Stone' does not stand for 'Business Model."

Twitter's new look won't be limited to the redesigned Twitter home page. Doug Bowman, creative director at the social media company, posted a screen shot of a refreshed design for Twitter Thursday, according to SocialTimes. Of course, the whole screen isn't even shown because, as Bowman wrote in a comment, "Working on what may end up a significant redesign. Not final yet. What we can show without giving away the farm."

It looks like quite a bit is going to change, and as usual, even the smallest of updates could carry a significant revenue implication for Twitter. Here are four implications of a screen redesign for Twitter (and, more important, its investors):

Last year, Twitter said it had two goals for 2010: generate revenue and make acquisitions. At the time, the company was still sitting on a significant portion of its last round of capital, and given the $20 million annual burn rate revealed late last year -- plus the revenue it's generating -- it's unlikely that Twitter has had to deplete its coffers. So, Twitter has cash to put to work, and now we're seeing what that means.

On its blog, Twitter announced Friday that it has entered into an agreement with Atebits (aka Loren Brichter) to acquire Tweetie, which is one of the top Twitter clients for the Apple (AAPL) iPhone. In addition to acquiring the application, Twitter is also picking up talent. Brichter's efforts were good for a 2009 Apple Design Award, and he'll be part of future efforts to get Twitter for the iPad off the ground.

More than half of Twitter's users aren't from the U.S. Matt Sanford, lead engineer or the company's international team, writes on Twitter's blog that 60% of its user base comes from outside the U.S. This reflects steady growth from June 2009, when just over 55% of Twitter's users were domestic.

Big-name advocates in foreign countries have bolstered technical developments, such as the release of the platform in Spanish, with Colombian registrations up 300%. Those in India are gaining close to 100% thanks to adoption by high-profile politicians. Further, overseas partnerships, like the one with Bharti Airtel, have made Twitter viable overseas. Early on, international growth prospects were a concern, given mobile carrier rates and texting charges.

Twenty-six percent of businesses using Twitter say they'd pay for the right services, and that might just be good enough.

WebBizIdeas.com polled 850 Twitter business users about what services would lead them to pry open their wallets. Three quarters of them said they either weren't crazy or were unsure about paying for additional features like analytics (31% and 43%, respectively), which sounds like a menacing amount. Yet, the size of this social media environment may make the 26% sufficient.

Twitter may say that a new, redesigned home page reflects an attempt to provide more immediate visibility into what's happening on Twitter... but it's really a revenue play.

The new home page does a great job of providing the information hooks that would get a prospective user to click to learn more and ultimately open an account. Its clear objective is to increase the user base, a challenge that Twitter faced in the second half of 2009, after experiencing explosive growth in the two preceding quarters.

More users means more traffic. More traffic means more revenue.

Speculation about the future valuations of companies like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter has undoubtedly driven interest in private markets where early shareholders can turn for a taste of liquidity before the big day. SharesPost, which has been a source of information on the likely IPO implications of these companies, has been among the beneficiaries: membership has doubled ... since November. According to a statement by SharesPost, "over 15,000 buyers and sellers of private equity" belong to the site.

Twitter's a pretty lucky company. Few get two bytes at the hype apple in rapid succession, but this social media platform has found a way to make up for its disappointing announcement about its advertising model. According to VentureBeat, Twitter might unveil its long-awaited, heavily-hyped and possibly investor-satisfying corporate accounts. Next month, at its inaugural Chirp developer conference, we could finally see what might just be the foundation of Twitter's business model.

I'm sure everyone knows about the growth problems at the social-networking site. This recent article at Reuters discusses them. Morale at the company appears to be waning. Unique visitors aren't what they used to be. An ad agreement with Google (GOOG) is about to expire; any new transaction on that front may not be as valuable now that MySpace has been relegated to not-as-cool-as-it-used-to-be status.