It’s funny, last night I had dinner with Matt Cutts, Google’s best known blogger. He said Google wasn’t buying Twitter as far as he knew, but I figured that Matt might not know whether discussions were happening or not so I didn’t report that to see what else fell out on the blogs after Arrington reported a rumor that Twitter was in discussions. After all, if you don’t want the world to know something you shouldn’t tell your #1 blogger. But now Kara Swisher is reporting that there is no Google deal under discussion to buy Twitter. Kara knows Google very well. Her partner is an executive at Google. So, I’ll go with Kara.
So, why would a rumor get started in first place? Well, Twitter might want to shake buyers out of the tree. Or, someone at Google might want to buy Twitter and is trying to get internal support built up for such an idea. Who knows?
For now, I’m going with Kara. I didn’t believe this deal from the beginning and said so over on friendfeed when I first heard about it.
UPDATE: I didn’t mean to imply that Kara got this info from her partner, see her disclosure. I included that info to demonstrate she knows Google very well and has tons of sources.
Scobleizer 
I certainly hope Google is not going to buy Twitter!
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I certainly hope Google is not going to buy Twitter!
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My theory is that it’s an elaborate April Fool’s Day prank. Or maybe I’m just being cynical.
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My theory is that it’s an elaborate April Fool’s Day prank. Or maybe I’m just being cynical.
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Perhaps the rumor was floated by Arrington, wondering…what would be the value of a top ten position on Twitter pre and post a Google buyout?
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Perhaps the rumor was floated by Arrington, wondering…what would be the value of a top ten position on Twitter pre and post a Google buyout?
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robert – why do you continue to defend mike all the time – he’s proven wrong time and time again?
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robert – why do you continue to defend mike all the time – he’s proven wrong time and time again?
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Partnership, cross-deal something early talks, that way Google gets what it wants without having to buy up, as Google is always a sucker for web fads, obsessively looking at raw data, falsely thinking human behavior flows in a binary fashion. And Twitter can keep it’s hippieified South Park street cred. That’s what is really going on here.
But the fact that you say it’s a wholesale no go, (Executives oft lie before announcements) makes a buyout seem more likely, YouTube style. Twitheads won’t bolt with Google, they didn’t with YouTube, provided Google doesn’t do something stupid like lay half the site down with text ads, or go SMS advert happy, agree to use twitter from mobile, agree to be spammed. I don’t think that would go over well.
Truthfully I HATE Twitter, time-wasting narcissistic little thoughts of zero value, yes including my own, had to sign up on account of country-scattered family, but protesting it every second.
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Partnership, cross-deal something early talks, that way Google gets what it wants without having to buy up, as Google is always a sucker for web fads, obsessively looking at raw data, falsely thinking human behavior flows in a binary fashion. And Twitter can keep it’s hippieified South Park street cred. That’s what is really going on here.
But the fact that you say it’s a wholesale no go, (Executives oft lie before announcements) makes a buyout seem more likely, YouTube style. Twitheads won’t bolt with Google, they didn’t with YouTube, provided Google doesn’t do something stupid like lay half the site down with text ads, or go SMS advert happy, agree to use twitter from mobile, agree to be spammed. I don’t think that would go over well.
Truthfully I HATE Twitter, time-wasting narcissistic little thoughts of zero value, yes including my own, had to sign up on account of country-scattered family, but protesting it every second.
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Alexa: who is defending Mike here? He was right about YouTube going to Google. But, personally, I think it’s fun when he publishes rumors. He shakes the tree and the truth falls out.
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Alexa: who is defending Mike here? He was right about YouTube going to Google. But, personally, I think it’s fun when he publishes rumors. He shakes the tree and the truth falls out.
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I think Identi.ca will be able to make money and spread itself more than twitter will ever do due to its free software nature.
Do you have an account there?
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I think Identi.ca will be able to make money and spread itself more than twitter will ever do due to its free software nature.
Do you have an account there?
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Not sure what to think about this.
On the one hand one worries about the question ‘who will buy Twitter?’ At the moment Twitter is a really clean platform and I for one haven’t noticed any advertising or banners on it. By advertising I mean like on facebook where you get the little ads down the side. And although I am in online marketing, I like this advert free platform.
If Google were to buy twitter, the ads would probably be Google ads and these are not intrusive. But we could end up with a buyer that outs up huge banner ads plastered all over the place.
On the other hand, google seems to be everywhere and buying everything. Cannot decide whether this is a good thing, a bad thing or something not to concern myself about
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Not sure what to think about this.
On the one hand one worries about the question ‘who will buy Twitter?’ At the moment Twitter is a really clean platform and I for one haven’t noticed any advertising or banners on it. By advertising I mean like on facebook where you get the little ads down the side. And although I am in online marketing, I like this advert free platform.
If Google were to buy twitter, the ads would probably be Google ads and these are not intrusive. But we could end up with a buyer that outs up huge banner ads plastered all over the place.
On the other hand, google seems to be everywhere and buying everything. Cannot decide whether this is a good thing, a bad thing or something not to concern myself about
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I think of Twitter right now as the “trophy wife” when it comes to acquisitions. Who would pay that much for a trophy wife? Yahoo? Perhaps – that would be interesting, and it would get people talking about Yahoo again. They need SOME reason for people to talk about them!
And a Yahoo purchase might not be seen anywhere as negatively as if MS _or_ Google bought Twitter. Yahoo would seem more like a caretaker then a company trying to change Twitter.
But until Twitter makes dollar one, they need to find a suitor that is just smitten with them – and I don’t think either Google or Microsoft fit that bill. They don’t need the pretty girl hanging on their arm – they are already milking their own cash cows. They have enough bling already. And face it – right now, with no revenue model, Twitter is “bling”. If you are a publicly traded company it is hard to defend buying bling – especially in this economy.
Should be interesting, but my bet is Twitter is wholly owned for another 6-12 months. Until they figure out a revenue model (and PROVE it). Then these discussions might become interesting…
Rob
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I think of Twitter right now as the “trophy wife” when it comes to acquisitions. Who would pay that much for a trophy wife? Yahoo? Perhaps – that would be interesting, and it would get people talking about Yahoo again. They need SOME reason for people to talk about them!
And a Yahoo purchase might not be seen anywhere as negatively as if MS _or_ Google bought Twitter. Yahoo would seem more like a caretaker then a company trying to change Twitter.
But until Twitter makes dollar one, they need to find a suitor that is just smitten with them – and I don’t think either Google or Microsoft fit that bill. They don’t need the pretty girl hanging on their arm – they are already milking their own cash cows. They have enough bling already. And face it – right now, with no revenue model, Twitter is “bling”. If you are a publicly traded company it is hard to defend buying bling – especially in this economy.
Should be interesting, but my bet is Twitter is wholly owned for another 6-12 months. Until they figure out a revenue model (and PROVE it). Then these discussions might become interesting…
Rob
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It’s still interesting to note that they did have a conversation about Search … http://tinyurl.com/ctfo4t
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It’s still interesting to note that they did have a conversation about Search … http://tinyurl.com/ctfo4t
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Twitter owners already have old deal with BLOGER maybe hes not wanna back it ;p
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Twitter owners already have old deal with BLOGER maybe hes not wanna back it ;p
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Good luck with the new job. Once “social media” (more specifically micro-blogging) moves away from well known services (twitter) and becomes just another pattern of communication that gets cooked into regular applications, what are you and all the twitterati going to talk about? Don’t forget how jazzed up you people were about friendster, then myspace, then facebook… Twitter is next on that list. Google should buy twitter, and make it part of the rest of the platform. Otherwise, twitter will be finding itself in the same boat as hi5 and the rest of them. Platform, not product…. if you want any longevity. Twitter should have taken the 500 m when they had the initial offer. I don’t agree that if you create value, you will just “make money’ afterwards. I value a lot of things that I get for free.
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Good luck with the new job. Once “social media” (more specifically micro-blogging) moves away from well known services (twitter) and becomes just another pattern of communication that gets cooked into regular applications, what are you and all the twitterati going to talk about? Don’t forget how jazzed up you people were about friendster, then myspace, then facebook… Twitter is next on that list. Google should buy twitter, and make it part of the rest of the platform. Otherwise, twitter will be finding itself in the same boat as hi5 and the rest of them. Platform, not product…. if you want any longevity. Twitter should have taken the 500 m when they had the initial offer. I don’t agree that if you create value, you will just “make money’ afterwards. I value a lot of things that I get for free.
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“He said Google wasn’t buying Twitter as far as he knew”
Just to be clear, I have no inside knowledge on this issue at all. I’m just an engineer at Google. I’m far away from any part of business development, M & A, or any other part of Google that would be involved in deals. I’m practically the last person at Google that would know anything about bizdev deals or partnerships with Twitter or anyone else.
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“He said Google wasn’t buying Twitter as far as he knew”
Just to be clear, I have no inside knowledge on this issue at all. I’m just an engineer at Google. I’m far away from any part of business development, M & A, or any other part of Google that would be involved in deals. I’m practically the last person at Google that would know anything about bizdev deals or partnerships with Twitter or anyone else.
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I’m practically the last person at Google that would know anything about bizdev deals
Which is why you make a perfect Scobleizer source, people not in a position to know, yet “social-media” associated with whatever company, meld the source around to support whatever contention, as bloggers and real-time webheads are incorrectly assumed to be all-powerful, omniscient and omnipresent.
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I’m practically the last person at Google that would know anything about bizdev deals
Which is why you make a perfect Scobleizer source, people not in a position to know, yet “social-media” associated with whatever company, meld the source around to support whatever contention, as bloggers and real-time webheads are incorrectly assumed to be all-powerful, omniscient and omnipresent.
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