The Emergence of Twitter 2.0?

CNet’s Caroline McCarthy had a short, but interesting, story yesterday about Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital, who was talking at the 140 Conference about Twitter’s recent $100-million financing. (Spark is an investor in Twitter).

Sabet said although Twitter didn’t need the money, it loaded up so it could make some major strategic moves such as hiring new people, launching new products and making strategic partnerships. (The search deals with Microsoft and Google being case in point.)

While the $100-million raise is important, it also signifies the end of Twitter 1.0 – a time when Twitter experienced astounding growth but didn’t do a lot of interesting things other than harden its infrastructure.

Twitter 2.0 could be a much more interesting creature because the company could do more creative, innovative and strategically aggressive things. The deals with Microsoft and Google put the spotlight on the New Twitter, as well as recent the introduction of lists.

Aside from hiring more people, it will be interesting to see if Twitter uses any of its cash to make acquisitions. The company hasn’t been an active buyer but it could make some really bold moves by picking up market leaders players such as Tweetdeck and TwitPics.

More: TechCrunch reports that according to comScore, Twitter had 58.4 million unique visitors in September – 37.5 million from outside the U.S.