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Google to Buy Twitter…Not
April 3rd, 2009 · by David Bradley >> 9 Comments
UPDATE: Twitter is not negotiating a sale with Google, according to Kara Swisher. The AllThingsD journalist says acquisition talks are first touted by TechCrunch (see below) are inaccurate.
However, the two are in talks focused on “product-related discussions”, Swisher reports, which makes more sense and confirms my earlier post about Google and Twitter being in cahoots.
It came a day late to be an April Fool’s but rumors are trending across the twitterhood, on the blogosphere, and just plain in the news that Google is in late stage talks to acquire microblogging site Twitter for $250m cash, half what Facebook offered for the plugged in celebrity’s favouite web service.
TechCrunch claims it has confirmation from two independent sources close to the talks that a deal is imminent.
This ties in with my thoughts of a few days ago about cross-linked activity between Google SERPs and twitter changes. I tweeted how google and twitter were in cahooots well over a week ago.
There is quite a lot of discussion on Twitter itself regarding this putative acquisition, much of it simply retweets of the TechCrunch link and remarkably few expletives so far.
What such an assimilation will mean for millions of tweeps will remain to be seen, although you can get your bottom adword dollar that one thing that will certainly change is that Google will slap its AdSense program all over your tweets within weeks of the legal papers being deposited. Whether or not you see that as a good or a bad thing will depend on whether you think making money from your online output is a viable business model or a way to boost pocket money.
Old update: Yet another source says the acquisition discussions are still fairly early stage, and the two companies are also considering working together on a Google real time search engine.
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9 responses so far ↓
David Bradley // Apr 3, 2009 at 12:58 am
Google to Buy Twitter: It came a day late to be an April Fool’s but rumors are trending across the twitter.. http://tr.im/ibGe
PD Smith // Apr 3, 2009 at 1:45 am
Oh dear. The ads are coming. RT @sciencebase Google to Buy Twitter http://tr.im/ibGe
Alun // Apr 3, 2009 at 10:30 am
If you combine that with the news that Google’s going to be using behaviour based adverts, that becomes worrying. From a privacy point of view using a client rather than the web interface might be a good idea.
David Bradley // Apr 3, 2009 at 10:40 am
Yeah, there’s definitely rumblings of major shifts. Of course, avoiding ads and blocking spies is mostly trivial for tech savvy users.
Roy Scribner // Apr 3, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Google to Buy Twitter…Not http://tinyurl.com/d6chv2 @sciencebase
E-TradeCounter // Apr 3, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Sadly twitter is still in the early stages and has major bugs to fix before any company will really sit down and take it for what it is. even the software behind twitter (which is what everyone is really interested in) has too many bugs at the moment. Twitter will not sell for maybe another 2 years as it works these out.
David Bradley // Apr 3, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Google is now using twitter to sell adwords
The search giant has started offering marketers ad units that stream their five most recent “tweets” across the Google AdSense network, according to Ad Age.
Financial software company Intuit is the first to take up the offer.
BaristaOnDutY // Apr 4, 2009 at 4:06 am
I Once Worked For Google, I Can See That Google Could Buy Them, But On The Same Note , Google Has It’s Own Platform, The Only Logical Reason Would B ADs
Google Make Money From Advertising, And Right Now Twitter Has A Great Audience!!
Rodney Liber // Apr 4, 2009 at 5:27 am
This is a good move for Google as they try to dominate the social market. Oh, no another Microsoft? Good for Google and Good for business especially if you have alot of followers and a Google Adsense account.
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