TechCrunch: Google buying Twitter

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RSTEIN

Comics, serious business!
Got this off Google Finance :lol

TechCrunch:

Here’s a heck of a rumor that we’ve sourced from two separate people close to the negotiations: Google is in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter. We don’t know the price but can assume its well, well north of the $250 million valuation that they saw in their recent funding.

Twitter turned down an offer to be bought by Facebook just a few months ago for half a billion dollars, although that was based partially on overvalued Facebook stock. Google would be paying in cash and/or publicly valued stock, which is equivalent to cash. So whatever the final acquisition value might be, it can’t be compared apples-to-apples with the Facebook deal.

Why would Google want Twitter? We’ve been arguing for some time that Twitter’s real value is in search. It holds the keys to the best real time database and search engine on the Internet, and Google doesn’t even have a horse in the game. In a post last month called It’s Time To Start Thinking Of Twitter As A Search Engine, I wrote:

More and more people are starting to use Twitter to talk about brands in real time as they interact with them. And those brands want to know all about it, whether to respond individually (The W Hotel pestered me until I told them to just leave me alone), or simply gather the information to see what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong.

And all of it is discoverable at search.twitter.com, the search engine that Twitter acquired last summer.

People searching for news. Brands searching for feedback. That’s valuable stuff.

Twitter knows it, too. They’re going to build their business model on it. Forget small time payments from users for pro accounts and other features, all they have to do is keep growing the base and gather more and more of those emotional grunts. In aggregate it’s extremely valuable. And as Google has shown, search is vastly monetizable - somewhere around 40% of all online advertising revenue goes to ads on search listings today.

If this is accurate, it’s a brilliant deal for Google - the value of Twitter is only going to go up over time. And it will be Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone’s second sale to Google - they sold Blogger to them just five years ago. But there’s one big question - where’s Microsoft in all this? Letting Twitter go to Google only hurts them, badly, in the long term search game. This is an asset they need to be competing for aggressively.

Of course, it’ll be sad to see Twitter become just another subsidiary of Google, if this happens. I would have liked to have seen the company spread its wings a little longer to see what it could do.

Updated: 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. But discussions between the companies are confirmed.
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TechCrunch has a lot of credibility... we'll see.
 
Why the fuck not...

My god is Google a behemoth.
 
Awesome. Youtube has been better than ever since Google bought them. (unless you're a douche copyright infringer)
 
Don't we have antitrust laws or something like that?

sykoex said:
Awesome. Youtube has been better than ever since Google bought them. (unless you're a douche copyright infringer)
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smh

File sharing is a good thing. The internet could be the largest and greatest public library the world has ever seen if it weren't for people like you.
 
sykoex said:
Awesome. Youtube has been better than ever since Google bought them. (unless you're a douche copyright infringer)
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Gonna have to disagree on that one.

YouTube videos load like shit ever since Google took over.
 
Guybrush Threepwood said:
File sharing is a good thing. The internet could be the largest and greatest public library the world has ever seen if it weren't for people like you.
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So are you saying that people shouldn't have copyrights? People shouldn't own video or audio? They should just spend money to make something and allow the world to take it why the creator is living on the street?

It is easy to want everything for free until you realize that after awhile there won't be anything left to take.
 
dskillzhtown said:
So are you saying that people shouldn't have copyrights? People shouldn't own video or audio? They should just spend money to make something and allow the world to take it why the creator is living on the street?

It is easy to want everything for free until you realize that after awhile there won't be anything left to take.
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No.

Copyrights are a good thing. People should be able to create something and have the right to make copies of it and sell those (hence the term copyright).

But as I said, file sharing is also a good thing. How can you convince people to buy your product instead of downloading it on the internet? Lower prices and/or add incentives for people to buy your product.

The Lunar games for the PS1 are a perfect example.

games023_2.jpg


Look at all those extras. Even if file sharing were perfectly legal, I would still spend money on that.
 
Google not buying myspace now seems like a good idea, but whats the odds of Twitter being overtaken by a new networking site in a years time?
 
Guybrush Threepwood said:
No.

Copyrights are a good thing. People should be able to create something and have the right to make copies of it and sell those (hence the term copyright).

But as I said, file sharing is also a good thing. How can you convince people to buy your product instead of downloading it on the internet? Lower prices and/or add incentives for people to buy your product.

The Lunar games for the PS1 are a perfect example/

Look at all those extras. Even if file sharing were perfectly legal, I would still spend money on that.
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My brother had that bad when it first came out, I stole it from him and still have it. :) The ribbon in the manual was a really nice touch. I miss the days when games had this kind of packaging presentation without being called a collector's edition.
 
Twitter's an open service..why can't Google do what it's supposed to do best and index the info Twitter disseminates better than Twitter itself does currently?

Or do they think Twitter would always 'do' search on Twitter better than Google could?

I think there's also the risk that Twitter is being over-hyped and could be just 'this year's thing'* ... but it's not like Google's never invested in such before, so..

* I think Twitter is cool, but on the internet there is always the risk of something else coming along that's unique and popular in its own way, but that has enough overlap to supplant previous things..and while previous sites or services by no means disappear thereafter, the internet seems like a picture constantly in flux.. IMO I think Twitter is just one part of a much bigger trend and picture of mass media and how it's changing, and the 'killer app' still isn't there.
 
The guy who founded Twitter was on Colbert last night talking about how they will be experimenting with plans on how to profit later this year, and that they were following Google's business model.
 
omg rite said:
The guy who founded Twitter was on Colbert last night talking about how they will be experimenting with plans on how to profit later this year, and that they were following Google's business model.
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so they're going to supply ads? where are they gonna show these ads? Google can show them on lots of different webpages. twitter only has your twitter feed.

it's too bad that things can't exist just by being cool or fun. everything needs to have a purpose. to make money.*


*CL excluded...
 
RSTEIN said:
I think that's the point. It's an untapped gold mine if managed properly.
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Ah, ok. The whole "key holding" sentence was confusing.
LCfiner said:
so they're going to supply ads? where are they gonna show these ads? Google can show them on lots of different webpages. twitter only has your twitter feed.
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Tweets are being downgraded to 130 characters and each post will be followed by a dynamic ad link.
 
Baker said:
Ah, ok. The whole "key holding" sentence was confusing.

Tweets are being downgraded to 130 characters and each post will be followed by a dynamic ad link.
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that would be awesome if they went and did something so obnoxious :lol
 
LCfiner said:
so they're going to supply ads? where are they gonna show these ads? Google can show them on lots of different webpages. twitter only has your twitter feed.
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The twitter search results would be an obvious place. Plus they could open their network to any site like Google.

They could just tap google to provide the ads and not build their own sales network etc. But maybe they want to, to make themselves a more attractive takeover target.

I can think of tonnes of ways to monetise twitter, actually, beyond simply placing ads beside search results. I dunno how many would be successful, but they've a fair bit to experiment with.
 
LCfiner said:
so they're going to supply ads? where are they gonna show these ads? Google can show them on lots of different webpages. twitter only has your twitter feed.

it's too bad that things can't exist just by being cool or fun. everything needs to have a purpose. to make money.*


*CL excluded...
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Look at something like Twitterrific. Ads every 10-15 tweets. Nothing invasive.

The value is in the data collection though. Real time info on trends and brand images, ability to track customer satisfaction, etc..
 
eznark said:
Look at something like Twitterrific. Ads every 10-15 tweets. Nothing invasive.

The value is in the data collection though. Real time info on trends and brand images, ability to track customer satisfaction, etc..
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the difference is that twitteriffic is a paid product that has an ad supported free version and it's not part of the twitter service. it also doesn't scan your twitters, or those of people you follow for directed ads (i tend to get extra annoyed at directed ads - but maybe that's just me)

And concerning the trend and brand info stuff...

Companies will go out of their fucking minds if they pay too much attention to the knee jerk reactions of everyone on the net twittering about new products. I'd be concerned that a company willing to look to twitter for immediate feedback will be the kind of company that might try to "please everyone" by responding to all this feedback a little too quickly.

they'd have to be very careful to filter out legit complaints and concerns from typical internet echo chamber whining. It can be hard to separate the two at first.


edit: yeah, I know I'm being a negative nancy on this but I want to be clear that I don't think its impossible to monetize twitter. My worry (and this is a knee jerk reaction to :) is that the attempts will be too aggressive. I am more than happy to be proven wrong.
 
This is an odd turn of events if true.

Didn't Eric Schmidt specifically state that Google was not interested in acquiring any companies just a few weeks ago? In fact, I'm almost certain he had some choice words about Twitter specifically. Needless to say, I'm surprised but, I suppose not entirely surprised.
 
If Google also acquired Facebook and NeoGaf, I'd pretty much be exclusively browsing the Googlenet for the rest of my life. And I'm okay with that.
 
oh yeah, please note that techcrunch has updated the story twice already. changing "late stage talks" to just "talks".

so they're hedging their bets in case nothing happens.

typical.
 
LCfiner said:
attempting to monetize twitter is going to fucking RUIN it.
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Like it ruined YouTube?

Seriously, Google will simply move it to their messaging group where the XMPP stuff lives, bind it to the search group and life will go on - without twitter being down for hours or days at a time.
 
broadwayrock said:
Google not buying myspace now seems like a good idea, but whats the odds of Twitter being overtaken by a new networking site in a years time?
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Significantly lower. While there is a low barrier to entry (sending short messages across the internet is so primitive it doesn't warrant explanation), there is a high switching cost. Google grabbing Twitter gives them even more brand recognition as a going concern and more businesses will be willing to invest time and effort into the approach. When the next 'twit' engine arrives, it will have to overcome some significant penetration barriers in order to gain a mass audience.
 
Damn I would fucken hate it if Twitter replaced or was otherwise supplanted into Google. I never have and never will care what some asshat no on cares about is doing at every minute of his god-forsaken life.
 
AstroLad said:
Damn I would fucken hate it if Twitter replaced or was otherwise supplanted into Google. I never have and never will care what some asshat no on cares about is doing at every minute of his god-forsaken life.
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It's too bad Twitter being supplanted into Google would automatically force you to be subjected to these god forsaken atrocities, right?
 
Phoenix said:
Like it ruined YouTube?
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I wouldn't say youtube is "ruined" but it does suck more now than before. I get lots of messages saying that videos aren't available in my country (Canada) or clips that use a few scenes of copyrighted material are taken off real quickly.

plus lower third ads while videos are playing are annoying as hell.
 
SpeedingUptoStop said:
It's too bad Twitter being supplanted into Google would automatically force you to be subjected to these god forsaken atrocities
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Exactly, I get palpably and visibly annoyed at how much Twitter has insinuated itself into our society in a pathetically short amount of time. It's to the point where news reports mentioned that the news broke on Twitter. And I give a fuck, why? The next time I hear someone say "tweet" I'm going to literally punch their fucking lights out.

It's a walking advertisement. Just the thought that thousands of people are posting meaningless bullshit about themselves all day long (just took a crap!) is insanely obnoxious. But then putting it up in my face by making it a part of Google? This fad can't die soon enough.
 
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