Update to our post last night about Google/Twitter talks: New sources say that Google is interested in acquiring Twitter, and has had talks with the company about a deal. Google’s internal valuation, however, would value the company at a token premium above Twitter’s last round of financing valuation, around $250 million. Some Twitter insiders want the deal, but our sources say CEO Evan Williams wouldn’t sell even for $1 billion. “He may blink, but he wouldn’t do it,” said one source.
Google may also be concerned with antitrust issues around any major search-related acquisition, we’ve heard (and others have noted).
Clearly there’s a lot of posturing going on, and quite possibly some dissent in the ranks at Twitter. The company is officially stating “Our goal is to build a profitable, independent company and we’re just getting started.” Which is exactly what any company would say under any circumstances. The fact that Facebook acquisition discussions got so far last year suggests that they were open to merger discussions. But the valuation needed to get a deal done has increased dramatically since then.
Would Google pay more than $1 billion for Twitter? No idea. But there’s no way Microsoft lets a deal be negotiated without putting its bid in, too. And if these two giants see Twitter as the future of search, $1 billion is peanuts.
The Near Term Deal
Meanwhile, business discussions between Twitter and Google continue. The deal Google wants: a real time feed of Twitter updates to speed indexing. Without that feed Google must independently index each Twitter user periodically to look for updates. That means it’s dreadfully slow in grabbing all those Twitter posts. And it’s also very expensive from a computing resource standpoint. A real time feed would be of huge value to Google, and they’d be smart to nail down a long term deal sooner rather than later.
A real time feed of Twitter posts would negate much of the head start Twitter has in the nascent real time search space. It would be a coup for Google to get the Twitter milk without having to buy the cow. The real question is, does Twitter fully understand the value of this feed?
How much did Evan pay you to write this post?
STFU. Use your real name, URL and email address or GTFO.
I’d love to debate Twitter with you all day but hiding behind cowardice as an anonymous commenter is petty and childish.
Michael. Can you please require Disqus and Facebook Connect comments ONLY? I’m tired of this anonymous commenter bullshit. SUBSTANCE is needed on TechCrunch and the comments get worse every day.
i would have marked it as spam but you beat me to it.
This just keeps getting more interesting. Above $1 billion though, I start to wonder if its cheaper for Google to just do a Gwitter themselves.
Follow me now @ http://twitter.com/IanMikutel
I’d happily be your spam monkey and Red Pen these comments day and night.
It’s your site and I love reading posts across the board from Twitter to Green-Tech and I used to rely on the comments for real conversation and real networking.
These days, it’s anger, spamming, links, poor grammar, arguing and people who just complain for no effing reason.
I’m sick of it.
Honestly, I wonder why TC hasn’t implemented a comment system like http://intensedebate.com that uses a reputation system to weed out the spam/crap posts.
Oh yeah Ian?
I wonder that too because then I wouldn’t have to see your comment that says “Follow me now @ my twitter profile”
Can’t wait for a system like that to be put in place. I find your comment funny because you just posted spam / crap 6 minutes ago.
And since you don’t even commenting the article, I guest you’re a spammer too
Adam Jackson,
you have 40,000+ updates on twitter(do u ever do anything other than twittering … i hope your customers are aware of this fact) …. and only 2500+ odd follower … did u ever think y? coz your updates are crap, for example, ‘I’m at Westfield Center (865 Market St, 5th Street, SF) .’
you have your own website ‘Ideapply.com’ and this redirects users to your blogging website .. how amazing… least you could have developed an official website for your 10employee company ..
You also have a LinkedIn profile with 323 connections… oops! but you only have 2 people recommending you. Another strange fact…
I hope now you would realize how real name affect your personal and professional life …
This are interesting facts about Adam Jackson indeed.
Please leave the anon comments. I’m a closet geek.
See, I’m in tech PR. If you’re in PR posting on a board like TC…
*Post something positive or in agreement with the author, and you’re just one of countless other PR people trolling boards to suck up to reporters you are responsible for pitching. Or you’re “building your brand.”
Both of which really do happen, neither of which are why I comment.
*Post something in disagreement, or something is taken the wrong way, and you may affect your relationship with the writer, which in turn affects your livelihood. Depends on the writer of course, but why risk it?
So I may read TC for work (I’m lucky that way), and I may work with TC editors on occasion, but when I comment, it’s just me and my opinion, for whatever it’s worth.
You tell him Rahul. Andy, just cool it man. There’s better things you can devote your anger towards.
Michael:
AJ is right. Your post is definitely self-serving at least.
Given Eric Schmidt’s recent comment that “Twitter’s nothing but a poor man’s email system”, I doubt that Google is trying to buy Twitter.
1 Billion valuation is a scam. Google’s 250Million internal valuation on Twitter is rich on my opinion, knowing Twitter’s internal architecture.
The problem with Twitter and Facebook is that it is hard to monetize millions of users because the users are there simply because it is free. The underlying services don’t serve any real life monetizable purpose.
This google buying Twitter thing is a bluff, trying to lore Microsoft or Yahoo into buying a piece of useless junk. Whether MSFT or YHOO will fall into the bait is questionable right now, but the intention to cash out by Twitter board member is clear right now, except that they aren’t going to get their day dreaming valuation. Take 250 Million, because that is the best valuation on a POS service you can get.
I agree about anonymous comments being a problem. Say what you will about the positions Arrington and others take at TC, the articles are interesting. The comments can be too, but you often have to sift for them in a pile of crap. A small entry barrier (registration, Disqus, Facebook Connect, whatever) would go a long way to promote quality over quantity.
Not to stray too far off-topic, but to those asking for either Disqus or Facebook connect:
- People who don’t have JavaScsript enabled can’t use Disqus; and
- There are a significant percentage of users who don’t use Facebook (myself included).
Additionally, some people like anonymity (and I won’t even get into the discussion concerning “real content”, especially not on TechCrunch).
Sure, anonymous comments are the problem, not entirely fictitious stories from which TC slimily makes a gradual retreat once the linkbaiting peters out.
I could see a company like Meltwater trying to acquire Twitter or work a large deal with them.
Does anyone know how deep their pockets are?
I should have explained my impetus to comment
“there’s a lot of posturing going on”
One *could* see this post as part of that posturing, eg TC “reporting” that Williams won’t take less than $1B. Damned if you don’t report it, damned if you do.
@Adam
“STFU. Use your real name, URL and email address or GTFO ”
“These days, it’s anger…I’m sick of it.”
Agreed, I find the anger bothersome.
You have to see it from my side.
I see someone with just initials, no URL and no image simply adding one line, “How much did Evan pay you to write this post?”
This post after Arrington has said many times that TechCrunch doesn’t accept payment for posts and they disclose all investments when writing about a company.
Your comment was clearly trolling so returning back to the conversation like you were simply misunderstood isn’t an excuse.
I’m angry because comments like yours continue to flood TechCrunch. My complaint isn’t that TechCrunch’s Content has “gone downhill” it’s the people commenting and giving their opinions that has gone downhill.
I think it’s acceptable to be angry when someone like myself comes to TechCrunch for insight into today’s trends in technology and finds trolls, spam and other crap.
I won’t post another reply because now I feel guilty about wasting a perfectly good comment space on an Internet argument. I would like to add that I am glad you came back to set the record straight but it would have been a better use of space to get it right the first time instead of sounding like a troll.
FB connect or use your real info and spoon pic, or gtfo.
@adam, @kamal – I won’t use FB or my real name. I also won’t “gtfo”. Now what?
I for one find AJ’s comment above more relevant and more useful than either of your angry/vent posts.
adam jackson….chillz….
its ok to put your link here and there, but your follow me at twitter comment is beyond obnoxious. i have linked to solarfeeds.com in the past but those days are over….
It is the internet, you are aloud and encouraged to be something different. let it be.
Wow, lots of butthurt about anonymous comments on this Internet
your sick or “anger, arguing and people who complain for no f-ing reason??”
you sound like the worst offender in this category
you should go away
Adam Jackson needs to relax
and this is where I call BS:
“Google may also be concerned with antitrust issues around any major search-related acquisition, we’ve heard (and others have noted).”
ya, the FTC is going to block the acquisition of Twitter. That is the dumbest bit of conjecture I have heard this year so far.
Well there are people who think that there no such talk going on… http://twitpwr.com/aWp/
I am not suggesting what AJ said can be true but such news can drive traffic anywhere. I wish TC has “really” confirms the news before posting them
obvious noob is obvious. like creating a facebook account is so difficult.
lol
Not sure how you consider linking to Twitter when the entire post and comments are about Twitter is SPAM. Strange.
actually your gwitter ideas makes sense. G will never buy for a billion. it would make them look seriously desperate. they have good reason to be desperate. they have no serious social networking presence. no user engagement sites. nothing they have is user sticky.
FollowLocator.com – cling ons
LOL, Google has nothing sticky? How about 70% market share of Internet search? Google might as well be printing money right now…
strategic destination web properties with premium user engagement is the future of the net. how many people have G as there homepage? from what i understand 65% of G’s revenue is from the adsense network (other peoples sites). how many people have a fixation with using adsense? more and more people just ignore the right column ads. their current position will inevitably become a slippery slope. they have proven that they are king of “search queries and add spew” but definitely not king of “premium user engagement.” right now G does not have a destination channel users can call home.
It’s been pretty evident that “premium user engagement” aka, Facebook, MySpace, etc. is not worth as much money as search/email. Google dominates both of these verticals.
Lolz..
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
If I was a betting man, I would guess the acquisition rumors were leaked by twitter staff, to help get counter-bids from microsoft and others.
So I am not surprised by the pricing rumors being leaked out either.
exactly, a pretty easy way to tell MSFT or YHOO that a 1.2B bid will probably get things done.
the sources were on both sides of the table.
Michael,
You have an amazing set of insider sources. That said, you have to agree the leak would greatly help twitter to solicit other offers. The only reasons I can imagine someone in google would leak this out, is either they are great friends of yours and are doing it to provide exclusive info and/or someone inside wants to derail the deal. Either, on valuation or long-term strategy differences.
My bet is a deal is done with somebody within 30 days.
I personally wouldn’t want to see twitter in the hands of Google. I think it’s a scary scenerio seing google acquire every service that revolves around our life. I think Twitter would be better off in the hands of Yahoo or Microsoft so there could be more competition in the market leading to more innovation.
Of course Many TechCrunch Reader have a hard on Google and claim that MS would ruin Twitter or that Yahoo would do the same. But last i check Google ain’t the saint the fanbois paint it to be. The vast amount of information Google has on our daily internet habits should be of concern to everybody.
“The deal Google wants: a real time feed of Twitter updates to speed indexing. ”
How about using the Twitter API?
That’s exactly what I thought as well.
The flow is metered with approved exceptions.
A hearty ditto to that, and it is my extreme hope that Twitter doesn’t get GoOgleized. For if it does, I’ll tend to shy away from tweeting and hope for another similar webworld elsewhere.
coo-coo-ca-choo…can you smell what the arrington is cooking.
anyone else thinks arrington gets off on this?
do your thing mike.
No to a $Billion? With massive unemployment and the collapse of the global economy? Arrogant little fucks.
I think they’d be crazy to turn down $1B, and I can’t imagine Google or even Microsoft would offer them anything close to $1B today. But arrogant? How does refusing to be bought make them arrogant? And what would their taking $1B from Google or anyone else do to reduce unemployment or improve the global economy?
massive unemployment and the global economy are irrelevant. (to the extent to which they affect a bidder, anyway.)…Maybe you think Geithner or Congress should set a fair price–that’s how everything should work, right?
Spoken like a true lemming. People like you let the market affect them. People like Evan Williams create their own market.
They know they’re worth a lot more than that and are duly holding out for it. Nothing wrong for it.
Eric – idiots like you are why Facebook is screwed. “Create their own market” – dude Twitter doesn’t even know what a market is.
Don’t kid yourself. Facebook should have sold when they had the chance. Twitter should sell now. Anyone remember Pets.com? What about eToys? Think they should have cashed out when they had the chance?
Learn a lesson and stop being an arrogant idiot Eric.
Yeah, Eric, you are the reason Facebook is screwed lol.
And because other companies didn’t cash out when they had the chance, every future company should sell at their first chance.
The people who would get most of the money from a buyout aren’t exactly in a difficult position when it comes to money. All of them are wealthy enough. You dumbass.
Will MS spoil the party?
Hope to see some updates on that front soon.
I think it rivals similar to the YouTube acquisition…maybe 2-3 billion. Google needs this. As much as Eric Schmidt would deny it, Google’s search index (even at a multi-intraday refresh) is becoming smelly and out of date. Twitter real-time search is where its at. Get it before its gone.
It’s pronounced "one beeelion"
C’mon guys, this is getting ridiculous. 1 billion dollars? I’d rather make a twitter clone and spend $100 million in marketing.
Go do it then. It’s not that easy to just grab a userbase.
think that was a reference to what GOOG could do, smart guy
You mean like…Jaiku?
Well said @Hutch…
But they haven’t spent on marketing Jaiku. Have they?
The technology isn’t the issue. Of course Google could build a Twitter clone. It’s the user base that Google is after. As Kamal says, thats’ the tricky part. For whatever reasons, people have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. No amount of pure technology can simply duplicate that.
it has nothing to do with the user base that google is after, google wants the marketing that twitter has, google is only google because they had smart marketing with their name (people love the name google, it’s fun to say), one of the co-funders basically admitted as much at a talk he gave to a group of engineers in S.F. a couple years back, and twitter has the same marketing phenomenon, people love the name, it makes so much sense and works so well with the product, if twitter was named Jaiku it would go nowhere because jaiku is a stupid name
it’s also the same with Youtube, why use google video when you can go to a fun sounding place like Youtube, that’s why google bought youtube even when they had their own video hosting service, a name is worth a billion dollars sometimes
Google doesn’t have the success they do b/c of their name–that’s absurd. Yahoo could be Google and vice versa on name alone. Is Microsoft really fun to say? Or how about drudgereport?
Twitter will become history very soon!!!
JV
how does a large userbase lend itself to being an intelligent acquisition target for a search company? And for that matter Facebook has over 200 million users(ehm…) but look where they stand in terms of generating dosh
in all likelihood – most twitter users use google anyway (as it takes some threshold computer literacy to be able to use twitter and most people start with much simpler things)
It would never work, users love Twitter to death and that’s why they put up with all the outages. That’s another reason why Twitter is so valuable. The loyalty of their userbase is nearly unprecedented. Consider what happened to Friendster and how MySpace was able to defeat them. Twitter is a different animal all together.
Good for Twitter and Google. Take over the world one step at a time.
More importantly, why hasn’t TechCrunch written about the register.com rolling DNS outages?
http://www.thew..._to_DDoS_Attack
Take the money and run.
Tough to put a value on a service that has made no attempt to monetize itself. If you look at visitor numbers, and compare them to other ‘google web services’ I would say that $1 Billion is a LOT of money, but not for google.
If Brin and company believes in Twitter, $1 Billion is not that much money!
http://twitter....m/Spideroak_Inc
Didn’t something like this happen to FaceBook and some other sites? I think when these young companies get a good deal they should look into and be appreciative. Seriously, these guys are going to become multi-millionaires for writing code for a couple of years, they didn’t exactly cure cancer…
http://www.toom...ms.com/blog.php
One difference with Twitter is that the founders were already rich and successful. Once you’ve sold one company to Google there’s probably less personal satisfaction from selling them another one. At a guess. Shrug. I imagine there are coders in the company who want Ev and Biz to take the money now, thank you very much, but it’s not their call.
spending 1 billion for twitter is being on crack zone. twitter is no way the product that youtube was when they got billion +. youtube money well spent. twitter 1 billion + = being crack
Amen!!! B for twitter, someone is on CRACK!!!
Considering the traffic Twitter gets, I’m wondering what the CTR’s would be if ads were embedded – kinda like they do with Feeds? It wouldn’t be hard to calculate a ballpark revenue model for this.
I think the CTR would be a lot higher since the ads would be relevant to text instead of video titles.
Also, in youtube, users would see ads as a nuisance since it’s interfering with their experience of viewing videos. In twitter, on the other hand, you would see the ads related to your *search*.
But, the only way to know for sure is to test. =x
smart acquisition should carefully address the WHAT, HOW, WHY, HOW and…..WHEN – G should just wait for twitter to run out of steam like Farcebook and then gobble up in a car boot sale
Who knows what the right valuation is, but things can change real quick for better or worse.
i hope not {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/XlrAfMUxqq_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”i hope not ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/NtcAmluKrc”}}}
couldn’t hear myself {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/wet03Xln3N_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”couldn’t hear myself ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/BWCh83hjwY”}}}
Can anyone explain why “real-time search” is thought to be so valuable? I’ve been mulling this over, but it just seems silly to me. So what’s the angle?
And to be clear, I’m not asking why Twitter is valuable. I understand that it is a powerful platform with a lot of potential. I’m specifically asking why real-time search is so sought after.
here’s one article that might shed some light
http://blog.iwe...words/2265.html
Twitter search, the best marketing tool since Google adwords
But doesn’t real-time search make it a hotbed for spam? There is no filtering time unless results are ranked on aged accounts.
I mean, if you wanted to spam about a trending topic, it be so easy. If your account gets banned, create a new one.
I understand breaking stories and how it’s nice to get info quickly, but how relevant is it as a need? Unless a bomb is going to hit my house and someone tweets it to me with enough time to get out, sure it’s relevant. Other than that, I can wait a day or two on most breaking stories.
The best example of Real-Time Search power I saw recently were SXSW Interactive panel notes: On Twitter, you could siphon them off no problem, it was pretty much all right there for you (in fact, I piped most into a Tumblr account for archiving).
On Google, without the timeline/time-sorting/timeliness, you mostly got stuff from 2008 and older in the top 100 results, because Google’s link authority model works against them in a case like this.
Also, check this recent rant from @GaryVee:
http://3on.us/garyvee-predicts
They need to make their search better and less spam prone…but there is absolute value there. Put it this way, I have never joined facebook and will not but find Twitter very interesting. Frankly, I think Twitter could ruin facebook…eventually, anyway
How exactly?
Facebook has created a layer on the internet with which information and communication transfer is more conductive.
Twitter is more or less a content publishing website (micro-blogging is the term they even use). Yes, it is finding social applicability, but how will this supplant Facebook? After all, you can’t replicate your real-life interpersonal relationships with 140 characters…
It seems to me if you allowed a personal profile page similar to facebook, Twitter would be a better version. You can communicate on an individual basis with Twitter–it isn’t all microblogging
real time search is not valuable. “real time” is the latest tech buzz word and since twitter has a real-time search engine, then it takes on the appearance of usefulness. email is also real-time and same with facebook basically
Mike:
Breaking news is highly valuable and that is what Twitter delivers. It can do that from the actual sources involved (witnesses and those involved) instead of from the media.
Email is not real-time. How can you spread news in real time to millions of “listeners” via email?
Like everything else, the usability of Real time web ought to be judged in context – agreed i couldnt care a hoot about someone tweeting about a smelly toilet episode –
but i would be all ears if say i am a developer, have a problem i need help with, don’t know the best forum to post a question to and dont want to have to rely on google’s history pages (they throw up cached articles about older versions of software etc. anyway) – RTS helps
I have just started a website and would like it to be known to my target audience without having to first spend $$$ on SEO, then wait for it to get indexed and then pray that i get a good page rank – RTS helps here too
combine simple usecases such as these with semantics and you are looking at a very different world indeed
Someone is seriously wondering why real-time has value? Wow!
Yes, and what I’m concluding from these very helpful responses (thanks) is that there is very little actual value there.
Breaking news has value, but that’s been available on the web for over a decade, and from much better sources than Twitter.
Great as Twitter is, I can’t think of anything I could possibly search for (on Google) for which a tweet would be the most relevant result.
Of course not. Twitter will $1 billion in revenue in 3 years! hello??
Not sure I would understand not selling for a cool $1B. That is ridiculous of them to not entertain such an offer, because as others alluded to, Google could just as easily write something themselves that would be more stable, scalable, reliable, and likely more useful. They could plug into their existing API’s like Google Earth, Google Maps, etc. allowing them to geocode “tweets” – something I find majorly annoying right now. Why is it we can’t geo-target the tweets we post, or on the flip side filter the tweets we receive based on a geographic location?
As the founder of a music website, I don’t want to create a Twitter page per city – I should be able to tweet live entertainment based on geographic location so my followers in, say, Green Bay don’t have to see the tweets for shows going on in, say, California.
At any rate… just wanted to take a brain break on this Friday afternoon
Twitter is not the future of search. I’m not always looking for 140 characters of nonsense when I’m searching on Google.
But — I don’t think 1B for Twitter is crazy either. 250M is clearly too low. Google buying Twitter for 1B is more than a shot across the bow at Facebook, it’s a near-miss torpedo. And MSFT is not going to bid at 1B. That’s the beauty of 1B.
Also, Twitter can’t say no to 1B. They’d have to be out of their minds. How much you want to bet Zuckerberg wishes occassionally that he put a 1B in the bank when he had the chance.
You’re right. No one says no to one beeelion dollars (thanks Ken) out right – especially if your monetization model is still fuzzy around the edges.
But who is to say they were even offered that much. I don’t think anyone would offer that much for Twitter, not right now.
It is my personal wish to revisit the subject of Twitter several years from now on a VH-1 broadcast.
cough cough, facebook?
heehhee…and who’s sorry now (que the music)
“Twitter Wouldn’t Sell For $1 Billion, Says Source”
A. Apparently the good source knows that 1 Billion wasn’t offered?
B. This looks to me like somebody trying to get more $$$ out of Google than what was offered.
So Twitter was offered sub-1B
DUMB:
Google += Twitter – ~< 1B;
Google–;
next DUMB;
That’s what can can determine.
DUMB:
Google += Twitter – ~< 1B;
Google – –;
next DUMB;
line 3 is 2 minus signs. This comment system is doing some regex, sorry about that. Assume this is pseudo code.
Wow, what a confusing 24 hours. So is Google trying to acquire Twitter or not? Don’t really know who to believe.
very confusing….
This would be a defensive acquisition by Google and nothing more. Twitter is cute, but the longevity of this model is far from a home run.
If offered a BILLION $ and it is turned down on a billion multiple ( 1billion x zero revenues = $0) then these guys need to seek mental help.
I don’t know about that…Twitter could fetch multiple billions in a year
How, exactly? Yes, real-time search is a neat little novelty, but it is not mainstream, nor do I believe that it will be.
Like everything else, a price is paid based on potential, not what is…For example, the stock market looks to the future (why the market is rallying now even though there has been dismal numbers reported all week, save for a couple.) to presently value a stock.
It isn’t far fetched to look at Twitter and see some amazing possibilities, particularly if you are GOOG and you can monetize like nobody’s business
Nick commented: “I personally wouldn’t want to see twitter in the hands of Google. I think it’s a scary scenerio seing google acquire every service that revolves around our life. I think Twitter would be better off in the hands of Yahoo or Microsoft…”
Lets talk about the elephant in the room. This is about politics. Republican vs Democrat. Right vs Left. Microsoft/Fox/NBC Universal/Wall Street vs Apple/Google.
Twitter can be the successor to craiglist.
Think about how similar those concepts are. Only with twitter you have the added element of social feedback offering real time reviews of both the product and the ability to measure the credibility of the seller – all in a live market place.
It’s the dying newspapers that should make a play for this. Leverage the citizen journalism angle and combine it with premium editorial. Then organize the tweets into targeted ad streams (aka a classified section – only live.)
Then maybe it would be worth some money.
would be very, very difficult to takeout craigslist’s model. Twitter search would have to be extremely intelligent–think about how difficult it would be to search all of craigslist if it weren’t broken down geographically.
Newspaper idea is spot on, however. News Corp or NY Times should go after it…NYT would have to leverage everything, however
Google is the past of the Internet (data).
Twitter is the current of Internet (events).
What will be the future of internet (semantics?)
Google is the Past – Twitter is the Current – Lead generation t…
http://bit.ly/E8JQE
Twitter IS future of search. I already now doing half of my searches on Twitter. Once it gets more organize and with more features, it will be my prime search engine.
1 Billion is penauts, Twitter should wait.
Ofcourse, its not easy to be in their shoes. But Michael asked key question: Do they understand what they have?
What are you searching for?
On Twitter I’m searching for events which happened now or few days before. Its basically, together with Twitter Trends, replacing my newspapers, news websites and some of my RSS feed.
On Google I’m searching for older information.
As far I can see, Twitter is picking up the original source of all news. Everything what gets written on websites and newspapers and even blogs was already published on twitter few hours ago.
Twitter gives a fast, raw information and this is extremely interesting feature which Google never manage to implement. And if they don’t they are going to lose a lot.
Nonsense. Twitter is not a primary news source. There is no exclusive content on Twitter, only people pointing to traditional newssites. The same goes for that old myth that “new media” (i.e. blogs) is replacing “old media” (newssites). Blogs are 95% nothing but comments on stories that broke on traditional newssites.
Glad to hear that I’m not the only one here that sees the true value and power behind Twitter.
Sure, I once thought that it was silly, self-serving, and not helpful to use the service. But until you actually start searching on there, you don’t fully realize what it is really about.
Twitter should buy Google
lol…Brilliant
Genius!
I don’t see any acquisition at or above $1B for a company that has no real business plan to start turning a profit, especially not in this economy. How many billions have the likes of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL spent already that hasn’t turned a profit?
Would anyone pay a monthly or yearly subscription fee to use Twitter? No! Therefore, it’s all about serving more ads, and what has Arrington and crew been reporting lately? That’s right, ad revenue is decreasing at a significant pace. So where does that put Twitter? Seeking a bidder to bailout before the false valuation erodes.
Were they better off for selling Blogger to Google or holding out until they could turn a profit with it? As was the case then, an early exit strategy is the best plan for Twittter.
I also think Zuckerberg was foolish for turning down a $1B offer as well.
You would have to be retarded to not take $1bil. Making a business model out of twitter will prove to be much more difficult than just taking $1bil and starting something else with actual substance.
1billion??? i.e 1000 million in case you do not know. The difference between twitter and Facebook status is that Twitter is encouraged to be updated often and it is very open i.e public
I believe people just get excited when things are hyped. If Facebook opens up its Status update and Wall Postings, it will eclipse whatever information Twitter has.
@Mike, do you think Twitter is worth all the hype? Considering only a very small portion of the internet population uses it. It may have potential, but it is not almost there yet.
PS: We need a comment voting system to weed out crap. Let us revolt like we do to Facebook until Mike implements it!
… there he goes again, another member of the Nigerian Gestapo trying, again, to change things to accommodate his wishes — He still does not understand the concept of *free speech* –
But again, this is not a surprise = he is actually “Anjali Sen” the notorious spammer “From India.” — Yes, that one….
Facebook has a couple of fatal flaws in comparison to Twitter:
1. It’s a closed system
2. Reciprocating the befriending of others is obligatory
3. Twitter is becoming a social, culture and lifestyle movement.
Its hard to explain but people on Twitter are more service orientated while on Facebook is everything about presenting yourself.
Thats why MySpace is losing race because they are even worst than Facebook.
4. Twitter users have in average 9 x more daily updates than FB. That almost covers the difference in numbers of users.
i agree
Worth asking: Does Google feel the $1.5 billion investment in Youtube was worth it enough to invest $2 billion in another company?
I don’t think the Fed would kill a Twitter / Google merger because there are enough Twitter clones and FriendFeed knock offs to provide a challenge in the real time search space.
Hey, I just realized, Twitter’s stock is going WAYYYY up!!!
Oh wait……
Build a twitter competitor or 2 and let’s see if they eat humble pie…
Plurk, Jaikom ….
twitter real-time search algorithm:
select * from profile where descriptions like ‘%morons%’ order by created_date desc
Hahahahaha!
Hard to face the facts.
Incredible.
The only thing Twitter has of value is users and even then Gmail or Facebook’s adoption rate dwarfs Twitter’s.
I don’t understand why Google doesn’t just launch Gwitter. Build it into gmail, give it a really polished API, use some Google Search Magic to fix #tracking- Twitter would be a ghost town in a month.
You’re wrong, otherwise Jaiku and Pownce would be kicking Twitter’s butt right now. Twitter users stayed despite it having more downtime practically any other service on the web. That’s some serious user loyalty and that can’t be said for any social network or other social media site.
Twitter is here to stay
Its a social Phenomenon which neither Google or Microsoft can stop. Its beyond their money and power.
Just watch it.
I’m not convinced that Twitter is here to stay. One significant data point is that Twitter users are *much* older than just about any other popular web site (check Quantcast). The kids are *not* using it! When you look at Twitter, there’s not much value in following, very little value in posting, very cumbersome two-way communication. Search is quite interesting but relies heavily on the aforementioned low value activities.
Twitter has zero inherent or technology value. This isn’t rocket science. The entire value is in the users and what they put into it.
There are tons of Twitter clones that are doing nothing. Twitter is a brand, it’s not just about the software anymore.
FTR-I will sell any and all my websites for half of that beelion.
Excellent point, Twitter IS a brand. And that’s the trump card.
Facebook has turned into a MySpace-type mess: tons of apps/add-ons, most of which are just targeted ads and/or teen-centric, and oh yeah, tons of other ads as well.
$1B is not too much for a rapidly growing service like Twitter. What I do wonder is if it is in the hands of the right acquirer?
I see a better fit with CNN, or even NY Times. CNN because of citizen journalism, and they know a thing or two about monetizing services themselves. NY Times for citizen journalism as well, but also to finally turn the page on the old newspaper system. Both can easily attract advertising, perhaps then, partnering with Google.
Anthony @subwaystory
In what universe is $1B not too much for a web service that makes almost zero revenue? Yes, it’s growing, but it’s not that big…
Koolaidville
Whether or not Google would even pay $1 billion for Twitter, this will be looked back at as the worst decision made by Evan.
MySpace sold for what, $580 million? So Twitter is worth two MySpaces? The business model here is the same as most Web 2.0 companies: to be acquired, plain and simple. See you on the other side of the bubble, Ev.
Wow, I like your thought here. CNN would be a really good fit. Although I am not a fan of CNN so much =)
The antitrust angle is absurd. I can guarantee easy approval, probably without a second request or similar document production.
are you an antitrust lawyer?
mike -
implement disqus please – its becoming impossible to weed through the comments
Am not sure if it’s a wise decision for twitter to sell them to Google or even to let their data out to Google. In my opinion, they should acquire small companies like they did with Summize (now Twitter search) and strengthen their real-time search engine. In the earlier posts, people have mentioned about http://www.boilingpage.com that does a fantastic job of bringing popular webpages in twitter in almost real-time. Maybe, those companies should be considered by Twitter rather than selling it to Google.
Being on twitter since last April, it is nice to know that a big conglomerate like Google or MSN do not own it outright and risk ruining a very interesting phenomenon. I would say keep it separate, but in hindsight $1B is a LOT of money to pass up.
~daddy bookins
Was $1B a serious statement? It could be something like “will someone rid me of this petulant priest” or just plain hyperbole.
Also, when negotiating, you need to leave room to come down from. If I said I wanted to sell my condo for $500,000, no one would offer me $550,000. Instead, I might get an $400,000 offer.
Let us remember that Ev and Biz have done business with Google before. Who knows how this relationship works?
And, I bet @stop is crapping in his pants over this.
I think Twitter backing out of a Google deal right now would become known as one of the great blunders of all time.
Not bad. Approximately $1 billion times revenue sounds like a good deal.
there are 2 big battles than need to be won:
a) understanding my personal profile
b) understanding my social graph
and the best way to think about this is to think how each of the following fare in these categories: Google, Facebook, Twitter, and “Everyone else”
a) personal profile:
Google’s and more traditional personal profiles have failed because it forces the user to explicitly enter who they are and what they do. People are lazy. They don’t do it.
FB’s is a bit better – some folks talk about what they like to do, interests reflected through status updates, etc.
Twitter rocks, since for it’s (arguably limited) userbase, they DO express who they are and what they like (e.g. status / tweets).
The expression of status and twitter messages is really a way of building out “my true profile”. With G’s natural language processing capabilities, it could get a real sense of who I am.
So in the category of profile understanding:
Twitter > Facebook > Google > Everyone else
b) the social graph
I think this crowd get’s this point so I won’t go into it. But I do want to point out that Google’s graph is sub par (except if they decide to apply the “gmail social graph” to be their true social graph, which will be a game changer when they finally do that). But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that for now it is iGoogle or orkut, and not the gmail social graph.
Twitter’s is ok… sure, I know who is following you, etc. but the concept of a follower on T, is much different than a friend on FB, which is a closer representation to the social graph.
So in the category of social graphs:
FB > Twitter > Google > Everyone else
now…
the best way to think about the value of twitter to G (in addition to real time search, and communication) is search relevancy. It will be a way to understand a user’s profile (my point “a” above). the main integration G has to do is bind Twitter’s profile to the google personal profile (e.g. username). At that point, G will know a lot about me.
All of this, in turn, will result in more relevant searches delivered to me… higher click throughs, better adsense. Thus contributing to G’s bottom line.
Concluding…
Google buying twitter can yield relatively immediate value for search relevancy, and also open up new opps (with gmail and other properties). the acquisition would yield a different beenfit than a facebook acquisition.
Sorry for the long post!
Social graphs and profiles etc.. eventually people are going to realize all this ‘information’ they’re dumping all over the net like verbal vomit will come back to bite them in the ass.
There is absolutely no good that could possibly come from dumping mundane facts all over the net to be archived until times end.
Years and years and YEARS ago I used to post on a few forums, those postings are now embarrasing enough. Kids these days… when you’re an executive at a public company do you really want someone to be able to see how you behaved when you were 15? 18? 30?.. this is all being archived indefinitely.. I already judge people I hire on their tweets, facebook profiles, public information all over the net. Sometimes its positive and helps them, not always though.
100% correct. All of these kids these days are making a permanent record of the dumbest time of their life. It’s crazy.
I’ve posted on techcrunch before that I don’t know of a single person with a “real” job that has an active Facebook. I will never join that or linkedin for that matter
Marcus-It’s not going to go away, so let’s educate youth on how to be smart about social media. Cisco Fatty-scenarios happen, but it doesn’t debunk the value of the system, merely highlights the ignorance of the user.
David-No comment
Then you, sir, are an idiot.
I think your sources Michael sucks and I think evan told you to set the $$$$ so people around start thinking about twitter – business (b2b) .
Would self promoting ever stop?
Can’t Google already get a realtime feed of Tweets via Gnip.com?
My thoughts exactly.
However, that will entail a monthly premium – and if you can buy them once-off, you can do a lot more than just accept whatever data they’re willing to give you.