How much did Evan pay you to write this post?

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.

My bet is a deal is done with somebody within 30 days.

exactly, a pretty easy way to tell MSFT or YHOO that a 1.2B bid will probably get things done.

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 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 sources were on both sides of the table.

coo-coo-ca-choo…can you smell what the arrington is cooking.

anyone else thinks arrington gets off on this?

do your thing mike.

[...] 3: see here. CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase [...]

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.

No to a $Billion? With massive unemployment and the collapse of the global economy? Arrogant little fucks.

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.

[...] love Tech. I also Love the news and those who report it. Now I’m sure news reporters are aware of each other, like when Matt [...]

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.com/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.toomanyproblems.com/blog.php

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.

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?

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

http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/040309_Registercom_Falls_Prey_to_DDoS_Attack

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”}}}

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?

Of course not. Twitter will $1 billion in revenue in 3 years! hello??

lol

Not sure how you consider linking to Twitter when the entire post and comments are about Twitter is SPAM. Strange.

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.

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”}}}

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 ;-)

Amen!!! B for twitter, someone is on CRACK!!!

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?

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

[...] millones. Google, como cualquier motor de búsqueda, necesita a Twitter para mejorar su servicio. [TC] Comparta esta nota [...]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

lol literally

[...] On Friday however, Arrington indirectly insisting on the reliability of his sources updated the Google/Twitter talk-subject, saying: 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. [via TechCrunch] [...]

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?

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.

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.

[...] o blog do Washington Post, o Google também está preocupado com processos [...]

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! :-)

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…

twitter real-time search algorithm:

select * from profile where descriptions like ‘%morons%’ order by created_date desc

[...] broke the news this morning that Google is in talks with Twitter about an acquisition. Latest gossip from TechCrunch is that Twitter founder @Ev wouldn’t sell even for a valuation of $1 billion. That’s [...]

“The deal Google wants: a real time feed of Twitter updates to speed indexing. ”

How about using the Twitter API?

FB connect or use your real info and spoon pic, or gtfo.

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.

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.

Go do it then. It’s not that easy to just grab a userbase.

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

cough cough, facebook?

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. :P

$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

The antitrust angle is absurd. I can guarantee easy approval, probably without a second request or similar document production.

Hahahahaha!

Hard to face the facts.

[...] Facebook’s $500 million offer that Twitter turned down. The news is in the air that Twitter won’t sell itself for even $1 billion. Is Twitter looking forward to remain independent or it sees itself [...]

mike -

implement disqus please – its becoming impossible to weed through the comments

heehhee…and who’s sorry now (que the music)

here’s one article that might shed some light

http://blog.iweb.com/en/2009/03/twitter-search-the-best-sales-tool-since-google-adwords/2265.html

Twitter search, the best marketing tool since Google adwords

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.

think that was a reference to what GOOG could do, smart guy

[...] que de beneficios, pero tampoco desmiente la noticia. TechCrunch también ha actualizado y ha hecho un nuevo estupendo post, afirma que otras fuentes dicen que @Ev no vendería ni por mil millones de dólares. Además, hay [...]

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

[...] trackback Everyone is talking, bloging and even tweeting that google is buying twitter. TechRepublic’s Michael Arrington informs that some sources inform him that they are either in the final or [...]

I don’t know about that…Twitter could fetch multiple billions in a year

[...] TechCrunch: Would Google pay more than $1 billion for Twitter? No idea. But there’s no way Microsoft lets a [...]

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.

[...] Source(TeleCrunch.com) [...]

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

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! :)

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?

headline should read, “Twitter would turn down $1Billion”

as it stands, it’s ambiguous in it’s meaning. it could also mean:
1. no one is willing to pay 1 billion
2. an offer was made and twitter turned it down

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

This is just NUTS!

If google was smart, they would build it themselves, integrate with OPEN id. Plant it on their homepage, integrate it in to their search results, and become bigger than twitter in less than a few months. Way smarter than paying out 1bil. This god dam industry is nuts.

Plurk, Jaikom ….

I doubt that Google would be able to get a real-time feed of Twitter from any source without paying for it.

That is, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft would need to pay for it.

Everyone else is:

1. Small potatoes.

2. An advertising expense to show Google, Yahoo, and/or Microsoft how much Twitter is worth.

If Google needs to buy the latest and greatest, then this company has fallen into the same type of corporate non-entrepreneur mind-trap that embraces Microsoft.

Would a purchase of Twitter by Google be like Bill Gates buying Word and Foxpro back in the day? This is the more important question for the future.

[...] Michael Arrington provides a follow-up post in which he speculates on a price north of $1B for Twitt…. That sounds like pretty optimistic to me–especially in this market. However, if [...]

[...] ［原文へ］ [...]

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).

LOL, Google has nothing sticky? How about 70% market share of Internet search? Google might as well be printing money right now…

I can build a twitter-like clone in 2 weeks…who wants to acquire it for $100 million?

How, exactly? Yes, real-time search is a neat little novelty, but it is not mainstream, nor do I believe that it will be.

What are you searching for?

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…

@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.

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

… 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….

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

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

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.

Twitter will become history very soon!!!

Adam Jackson needs to relax

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…

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?

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.

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.

Koolaidville

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

Wow, I like your thought here. CNN would be a really good fit. Although I am not a fan of CNN so much =)

Seriously Arrington, are your sources just your imaginary friends from childhood? Or are you ok with stooping that low just for pageviews?

4/2 – Google is in talks to buy Twitter
4/3 – Google is NOT in talks to buy Twitter
4/4 – Sources say Google is back in talks with Twitter..

Arrington, maybe your blogging career has been milked enough?

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.

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.

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.

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.

And deliver the user base?

To put this in perspective, not even a year ago a $150 million valuation seemed absurd (google “is twitter worth $150 million?”). So to propose that they have created 6x more value over that time is simply irrational and bubble talk. Sure, they have had experienced phenomenal growth, but a large percent of their users are simply curious and have no need for nor are actively using the service. Does anyone really see Twitter being a major player 5 years from now?

who cares???

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.

twitter is cool and stuff but the coverage on this site makes twitter sound WAY more popular than it is. it’s a good signal amidst the noise. it’s the flavor du jour.

coincidentally a tweet is about the same length as a google adwords ad…

i don’t see any reason that google or others can’t copy the service. why do we think twitter per se is that valuable?

there is already a status line update in all the major IM programs and that’s connected w/the major emails (yahoo, msn, google) – how hard is it for them to build upon that and create a larger open network?

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….

Sure, anonymous comments are the problem, not entirely fictitious stories from which TC slimily makes a gradual retreat once the linkbaiting peters out.

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.

[...] just won’t sell: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/03/twitter-wouldnt-sell-for-1-billion-says-source/ [...]

Twitter should buy Google

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

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.

As much as I know the google fanboys are chomping at the bit for this deal to happen, I am really hoping that Microsoft ends up buying twitter.

Why? Right now Google has a complete dominance in the search market and MS acquiring twitter could possibly level the playing field so much that one could possibly foresee themselves back in the days of Altavista- Trying multiple engines for their queries.

Im not saying that this could make live.com be my default search provider, but it would certainly get plenty of searches a month from me. Not just as a business/startup owner but also as a average web user who wants to know “what people are doing”.

I think a big benefit of the twitter search is that its not (yet) polluted with fake info. Can you get results like this ( http://tinypaste.com/92b25 ) from google or msn currently? No- and thats why twitter is so valuable, and whoever gets it may have a indefinite leg up on the competition.

One thing to consider though, is that google definitely has the resources to promote jaiku to twitters level. Google has a (obviously) massive reach, and if they did something as simple as a “Join the Google social network, and tell us what you are doing” on all pages, how long would it take before it matches twitters level, or surpassed it.

The real thing Google or MSN is buying in this deal is the users. Both companies have the resources to possibly build something as large as twitter is independently of purchasing it, and if it is more cost effective to do that vs buying twitter, why wouldn’t they. Obviously the more data the better, but once you reach a certain point, another million users or so wont provide you with that much more analytics or data that you don’t already have. Google or MSN don’t need to be #1 in this game to satisfy their needs, they only need be a major player.

Wow! I hear you there: Google can’t create, so it buys creativity.

I think we should see some stake holding by google or some other partnership to start with, outright buying will only hurt the brand and product.

And since you don’t even commenting the article, I guest you’re a spammer too

I don’t see the need for Google to buy Twitter. If it’s real-time search that they’re after, they could either partner on a feed or simply crawl Twitter more frequently. Not to mention that Google doesn’t have the best track record with these types of businesses that leverage community, design, self-expression, and other areas where Google has always been weak.

I’d rather see Apple buy Twitter. They could integrate it with the iPhone & Mac. Overtime, Twitter could become the foundational hub of Apple’s web strategy (MobileMe, etc). If Apple offered a few free, premium services with their hardware, the boost in phone / computer sales would probably dwarf any ad / subscription business model that Google or an independent Twitter are capable of.

That said, Twitter’s growth is phenomenal, so I can understand the attention they’re getting. Twitter post frequency is up 125% in just the last 2 months…

http://bit.ly/JkYVg

Most companies would kill for 30% annual growth. Twitter is growing that much every 2-3 weeks.

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 …

It is the internet, you are aloud and encouraged to be something different. let it be.

popurls.com // popular today…

story has entered the popular today section on popurls.com…

Here’s a link to my take on how I recognized the the story and sources as bogus from the getgo. Worse, you wouldn’t let it go even as it clearly was shown to baseless.

Sincerely,

John Dodge

http://johndodge.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/google-buys-twitter-story-where-the-outrage/

Google would love to get their hands on Twitter.
But unlike Microsoft which paid $240 million to purchase only 1.6% of Facebook, Google should be able to acquire 100% of Twitter for around twice the price.

Twitter has a great brand name and it has the potential to become a huge revenue earner.
Plus it could possibily become the best live Social Networking Search Engine on the web.

So why should Google spend 100′s of millions of dollars trying to launch their own Live Social Search Experiment, when Twitter can do it for them by testing new ways of Live Searching over the web.

Once again, Google stays one step ahead of their online competitors, by looking to acquire another major brand name in their future web strategy.
And once again, Microsoft is left behind at the gates.

Currently, Twitter is worth roughly $150 Million. In a year from now it will be worth about $10. Here’s why:

http://laconi.ca/trac/
http://identi.ca/

Twitter is old news. Open source microblogging is the future. Google will not overpay for technology that will be worthless in a year.

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?

Well, there you have Twitter’s best monetization strategy. Lease your live data to whoever’s ready to pay the most for it.

If they give google the live feed, they’ll make money on a deal for some time, and they’ll grow enourmously, however, people will get used to searching on google and not on twitter, google will have the infrastructure to present search results better than anyone else, and Twitter could loose the chance on making money themselves on search traffic… At that point, they both depend on each other, Google needs the data, and Twitter needs the traffic coming from Google to keep growing at which point my question is will Google buy them for less money than what they could ask for now?

Smart move by Google trying to buy them when they’re still tiny.

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

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

lol…Brilliant

are you an antitrust lawyer?

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

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.

Leno thinks that Google should name it Twoogle, just sayin.

I personally don’t care if Google buys it or not, it’s a good service.

$1 billion seems a bit much though.

[...] — There are a lot of rumors flying around out there about Twitter right now. While Google isn’t buying it anytime soon, the two sides are talking. And they should be — or maybe they [...]

This are interesting facts about Adam Jackson indeed.

You mean like…Jaiku?

Looks like its going back to $250.000.000 sources telling “michael”

obvious noob is obvious. like creating a facebook account is so difficult.

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.

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)

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

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/04/03/twitter-co-founder-responds-to-recent-rumors

this news is FAKE! another fake rumour

I was just wondering if anyone knew how popular the facebook status updates were. It seems like it’s a rather popular feature. Is the facebook status module comparable to twitter in any way?
I ask because twitter’s popularity seems too difficult to compete with – this would lead companies to acquire rather than build a competing service.

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.

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

not surprised. Ev would not want to get burned TWICE by Google. more when there is not only proof of Blogger underperformed in a massive way because of Google management. but because of what happened with Socialstream (pretty much turned into friendfeed as some Googlers left), Jaiku (neved did anything with it. even if at a point it time it managed to have around 40% of twitter users) and dodgeball (the actual precursor of Twitter and that served as part the inspiration for twitter creation)…..

Well said @Hutch…

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

[...] — There are a lot of rumors flying around out there about Twitter right now. While Google isn’t buying it anytime soon, the two sides are talking. And they should be — or maybe they [...]

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.

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.

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.

[...] it’s the impact dunk, generally since Google’s newfound parsimony. Indeed, in the new post, Mike says Twitter wouldn’t take reduction than $1 billion. All the some-more reason to [...]

Why all the anti-MA/TC comments about sources, manipulation and rumour-mongering?
No-one involved in a real deal with Twitter (Google, MS, FB ) or even in business ‘around’ the Twitter ecosystem, would actually base their company’s stance, on oneor two TC stories.
MA is able to report what his sources are telling him, and we follow TC to find that out. Its just journalism isn’t it?

[...] a lot of talk with Twitter being sold. [...]

[...] but got a lot of folk twitching, with some speculating Twitter wouldn’t sell even for a cool $1 billion. Share and [...]

i agree

These posts about the deal are so full of shit.

Thank god the web has no smell.

daringfireball.net nails this mike jackass pretty well. take a look there.

But they haven’t spent on marketing Jaiku. Have they?

AJ’s first post has a point, before it was attacked by Adam Jackson, this story was made just to create buzz… There is no different in Evan saying I wouldn’t accept 2B, as the ‘north’ of a quarter of a million hasn’t even been confirmed either!

FB > Twitter > Google > Everyone else , I like it.

Twitter the future of search? Please…

Lolz..

http://www.smartbloggerz.com

[...] dia que passa fica mais claro que há uma grande chance dos boatos serem verdadeiros. Segundo o TechCrunch, o valor oferecido pelo Google ($250,000.00) estaria abaixo das espectativas do esperado e o CEO [...]

[...] is clearly stepping on the turf of the publishing industry, a new company has started that is sniffing at a billion dollar valuation, and with all that money flowing around it, and all the red ink in [...]

MashUp: Poken, Facebook, Twitter, BILD Blog…

Poken
Niedlich sind sie nicht, aber erfüllen durchaus ihren Zweck. Die Rede ist von Poken, dem neuen Lieblingsspielzeug der Nerds. Dabei ist von kleinen Figürchen die Rede, die entweder in Form eines Totenkopfes, Panda Bären oder gar ein…

You tell him Rahul. Andy, just cool it man. There’s better things you can devote your anger towards.

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.

[...] link on CNN.  Now it seems Google wants to buy all that info for some unholy amount of money and according to TechCrunch the two are in late stage talks.  I don’t have a problem feeding the Twitter machine as long as it feeds me back and while I [...]

That’s exactly what I thought as well.

I think if a analysis of search terms were run against all search corpus and twitter’s corpus, it would be a lopsided results set, not in twitter’s favor.

It’s a great sampling of topics, and yes, real time, but there are not enough users to compare the value of the index.

Maybe that’s ok?

[...] via: techcrunch Bookmark Us [...]

The flow is metered with approved exceptions.

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.

[...] in discussion with various groups, and it has been leaked that the Twitter hierarchy would want in excess of $1bn – watch this [...]

Nice post! Check out my site too at http://macmaniapodcast.com.

[...] — There are a lot of rumors flying around out there about Twitter right now. While Google isn’t buying it anytime soon, the two sides are talking. And they should be — or maybe they [...]

[...] Tech Crunch, por outro lado, publicou ainda ontem uma nota na qual afirma que, com o desenrolar dos acontecimentos, a Google pode estar querendo “o leite do [...]

[...] idea of Google buying Twitter makes me uneasy. Twitter turned down an offer of $1 billion and I’m glad they did. Google is already archiving every search made by users (supposedly to [...]

[...] ที่มา – Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch [...]

[...] zou wel even met zijn ogen knipperen, maar zou het niet doen”, wordt gezegd in dit artikel. Het officiële Twitter-statement lijkt ook niet te wijzen richting een op handen zijnde overname [...]

I think twitter is the future of search. I go to twitter almost always over google these days because its so real time and i think its cool to have a person right there with the info.

1 billion is nothing if google or microsoft sees thing the same way.

[...] würde Twitter ja sogar bei einem Angebot von 1 Milliarde Dollar NEIN sagen. Denn laut Techcrunch gab es bereits Gespräche zwischen Google und Twitter. Dabei fiel wohl der Betrag von 250 [...]

I’m sick of Twitter posts on Techcrunch.

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.

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 couldn’t care less about this article or the writer, but I do have one comment.

Adam Jackson is weak. What an overreaction! It makes one wonder why he got so angry and defensive so quickly.

Oh, I forgot. It’s because he is a “tech expert.” LOL

[...] Google might buy Twitter [...]

ha – my comment got squelched. nice censorship!

Google buying twitter, which has nominal to no revenues, no plan to generate revenue or profits, which allows third party apps to access its feeds without ever actually visiting its website and has no barrier to entry would and should result in a shareholder derivative action against the company for breach of their fiduciary duty and a violation of the business judgement rule. Moreover we have seen time and again that no Internet audience is safe and they will migrate from one offering to the next ie. Yahoo to google, netscape to Internet explorer and so on. By the time a biz plan is introduced to twitter, users will be well on their way to the next Internet trend.

Yes!

http://innuendoo.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/twitters-group-intelligence-vs-computers-artificial-intelligence/

[...] 消息放出，萬眾關注。TechCrunch昨天又有一篇新文章，點到了大家也都很好奇的「收購價」： 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. [...]

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.

[...] http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/03/twitter-wouldnt-sell-for-1-billion-says-source/ # [...]

[...] thinks it is worth more than a billion. I don’t know one way or the other, but I like the attitude. And I also know that it ties in [...]

[...] שירות המיקרו-עדכונים על פי שמועות שלא הוכחשו. בשעה שכלל לא ברור אם העסקה תצא לפועל, התועלות שגוגל עשויה להפיק מטוויטר [...]

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.

[...] Twitter Wouldn’t Sell For $1 Billion, Says Source (tags: twitter google acquisition techcrunch journalism microblogging internet IT) [...]

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.

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

Someone is seriously wondering why real-time has value? Wow!

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.

$3m to build the same or a better (more reliable, scaleable etc) platform.

$200m+ to advertise it to the existing google user base (but its only an oppotunity cost as they own the ad network already), and to move some key tweeters accross to the new platform.

+Free press on launch in all major newspapers and TV

When you start talking about $1b for something like twitter – you have to start to look at the relatively cheap cost of displacing it (particularly when the purchaser already has a large user base that they can market it to).

Then you, sir, are an idiot.

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?

oh ??? good

If we had a website with decent traffic but without a business model and we would be offered $250mio, we would SELL and live happily forever after.

Where can we sign?

[...] will anything happen at all? TechCrunch says a lot of things, but also that Twitter will keep talking to several different parties, but will not even sell the [...]

[...] Zie artikel in TechCrunch [...]

[...] একটা সহজ হবে না গুগলের জন্য। আপাতত TechChruch এর সূত্রমতে টুইটারের মালিক Evan Williams এক বিলিয়ন ডলারেও [...]

Twitter current phase is not about making money(see FAQ).

Of course, they could offer Premium subscriptions to raise money.

They could also show Adsense on free accounts unlike Premium users. Those ads would not pay much since they are not targeted ads. Those would be 1-3 cents clicks or CPM.

That’s where Google can make money by buying Twitter and show Adsense(CPC, CPM). Since they don’t have to pay for commissions, it’s more profit for them.

How many active accounts do they have? What if 0.1% pay $10/year to get a Premium account. How much would it raise?

Like Twitter or not, it can make money but how much? Can Google make 1B(?) back within a few years?

[...] 有消息称，Google在准备收购Twitter。keso还在Twitter上提出了两大看点。但最新得到的消息称Twitter的CEO Evan Williams不会以低于10亿美元价格出售。Google也未必付不起10个亿，只是这么大一笔，总得权衡一下，值不值得？ [...]

[...] Now we have this : Twitter Wouldn’t Sell For $1 Billion, Says Source   [...]

[...] 1: Auf dem TechCrunch-Blog findet man jetzt ein Update zur neuen Meldung. Danach sagt Evan Williams, CEO von Twitter, dass “man für eine Billionen [...]

I think Twitter should stay independent. However I can understand why that may not be in the best financial interests of people behind it.

Also, I was glad to read some real comments after the first handful of comments between all those people telling each other to get lost.

At the end of the day, Twitters purchase or otherwise will be decided by its investors. They will have a view on their preferred exit multiple, and obviously the market conditions and hence the options open to them. Googles’ advantage is they have money and to Twitter there are few other alternative buyers. Can you see either Microsoft or Yahoo stumping up the cash? – no I cant either.

So Twitter’s investor choices: sell to Google at a price probably below what they’d hoped for, or take a risk and stay independent in the worst recession in 60 years and with no clear way to deliver alternative revenues to its investors which would even come close matching a clean exit via sale.

I know where my money is

[...] Apart from having the being some of the daftest words ever put to use, the unstoppable forces of Google and Twitter are likely to continue dominating the dot coms for the forseeable future. Techcrunch has reported that Google is in the late stages of negotiations to purchase Twitter, with Twitter claiming that they wouldn’t sell for $1,000,000,000. [...]

[...] is clearly stepping on the turf of the publishing industry, a new company has started that is sniffing at a billion dollar valuation, and with all that money flowing around it, and all the red ink in [...]

I think 1B is too much and 250M is too low, hope to more debate but personally i dont want Twitter acquired by Google

[...] in Uncategorized by salesenablement on April 5th, 2009 Users don’t have to wait until Google buys Twitter to combine the best of both search engines. As shown below or in my earlier post, this Greasemonkey [...]

[...] as stories abound about a Google acquisition of Twitter, Adage had a story on how Google is already making money out of tweets. According to the article, [...]

[...] « Previous Post Twitter Wouldn’t Sell For $1 Billion, Says Source (click to read article) April 5th, 2009 by CJB Posted in Technology, Business Trackback from [...]

This is a late April fools day joke yes? LOL Twitter this Twitter me that. WAKE THE FUCK UP. Your shit is not all what you really think it is. SELL, SELL, SELL, SELL and stop trying to be a friggin CEO.

Make your mills and cut dude. Trust me, at the end of the day you will see what I am talking about. Later you will have a bigger and better idea. Just seel. Failure to do so will limit your creative powers.

Still keeping this bullshit train alive, I see. Btw, how can there be anti-trust issues when one of the 2 parties doesn’t make any money?

It looks as if he’s setting up a bidding war. I don’t know what other companies are willing to play, but hey. We’ll see. He could be setting up a real way to make money with the site, by selling a new ad service or service. Evan Williams is a smart guy and I believe he is holding out for a good reason. Lets see what the man is planing before we get mad at him.

[...] tanto por su lado la gente de Twitter con su CEO Evan Williams afirman, también en TechCrunch, que Twitter no se vende ni por US$ 1.000 [...]

Genius! :-)

[...] February 2009. And the success of the micro-blogging site has not gone unnoticed. A recent post on Tech Crunch stirred up rumors that Google was interested in acquiring Twitter for a deal around $250 million. [...]

[...] trương thanh thế của mình. Tuy vậy, sau khi đọc bài của Tôi Yêu Google và TechCrunch thì mình nghĩ thông tin Google muốn mua lại Twitter là có [...]

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.

[...] — There are lots of rumors flying around out there about Twitter right now. While Google isn’t buying it anytime soon, the two sides are talking. And they should be — or maybe they [...]

[...] to see how much it continues to grow, if it can start making money, or if it will simply sell itself to do [...]

[...] CEO de Twitter Evan Williams dijo, en el blog TechCrunch, que Twitter no se vende ni por US$ 1.000 [...]

[...] insita in tali informazioni. Io però non credo che Google comprerà Twitter, miliardo di dollari a parte, ma forse mi [...]

[...] Twitter has quickly emerged as one of the most popular social networks on the web.  Its real time updates is what makes the site such a draw.  As always, when a site rises in the ranks of popularity and unique visitors, other Internet giants attempt to acquire it.  Well Twitter is no different.  Back in November Facebook made an offer of $500 in stock that was politely turned down.  Now, Google wants Twitter, but, insiders say that CEO Evan Williams wouldn’t sell, not even for $1 billion.  Well one thing is for sure, the more media attention the property receives, the higher that acquisition price will rise.  Read more details about the Google Twitter talks here. [...]

[...] Friday, I was reading this post on TechCrunch and someone by the name of “AJ” without an Email Address or Web Address [...]

[...] No wonder Google might be interested in acquiring Twitter, even if that particular pot is off the boil. [...]

[...] Twitter reemplaza los replies por mentions y pide 1000 millones de dólares. [...]

Twitter Wouldn’t Sell For $1 Billion…

TECH CRUNCH — Apr 3 — New sources say that Google is interested in acquiring Twitter, and has had talks with the company about a deal. Google would value the company around $250m. CEO Evan Williams wouldn’t sell even for……

I think that google is a power house, I Love all their products, I think twitter will do well with google

[...] may be protesting too much from both parties, sources are now saying that Twitter CEO Evan Williams wouldn’t sell for a billion dollars, four times what Google is rumored to have placed the microblogging service’s value [...]

[...] Michael Arrington in one of the latest posts regarding Twitter have asked a key question: “Does Twitter fully understand the value of this [...]

[...] may be protesting too much from both parties, sources are now saying that Twitter CEO Evan Williams wouldn’t sell for a billion dollars, four times what Google is rumored to have placed the microblogging service’s value [...]

[...] as empresas Google e Twitter tenham demonstrado que uma possível fusão poderia ocorrer, uma nova fonte do blog TechCrunch revelou que Evan Williams, CEO do Twitter, não deve vender a rede social mesmo [...]

[...] No wonder Google might be interested in acquiring Twitter, even if that particular pot is off the boil. [...]

[...] feed Google must independently index each Twitter user periodically to look for updates,” writes Arrington. “That means it’s dreadfully slow in grabbing all those Twitter posts. And it’s also very [...]

[...] Arrington said Twitter had rejected a whopping half a billion-dollar offer from Facebook. In a later post, sources from Twitter said the owner wouldn’t sell even for $1 [...]

[...] intento fallido de Facebook, que Rupper este dispuesto a desembolsar 750MM,  que  Evan Williams, fundador, este dispuesto a  rechazar valuaciones de 1billon de dolares, a mi me surgen las siguientes reflexiones y especulaciones personales basadas unicamente en la [...]

[...] week there were rumors about Google buying Twitter. Twitter CEO Evan Williams reportedly turned down a cool billion. Their self-valuation was, I guess [...]

[...] Search? Posted by: Dirk in Search Marketing, Social Online Marketing It has been confirmed that Google is in talks with Twitter about a real time search engine. This would bring about a lot of value to search results, but also [...]

There’s going to be a deal, if it’s not an acquisition it will be a long term business partnership with cash not unlike the Microsoft/Facebook deal.

The motivates for Evan Williams and Biz Stone to sell is probably nowhere near as strong as the programmers that helped make twitter happen. These guys are probably chomping at the bit to make a deal.

[...] talks with well known companies like Facebook and Google. But the founders have their sights set on something greater. What that something is, only time will tell. One thing is for sure, Twitter has become so [...]

[...] possível e passivo de virar um sucesso e e atingir até “rumores” de compra de mais de U$1 Bilhão de dolares. Milhões de pessoas entram no twitter a cada segundo e postam exatamente o que estão fazendo, [...]

[...] is strongly signaling that it doesn’t want to sell at any price right now. The founders took significant money off the table in the last round valuing [...]

[...] thereby threatening Microsoft and Yahoo! But bad luck for Google gang as twitter worth is more than $1 billion, sources claim. The two-plus years of southwards going graph amidst phases of failure after meeting [...]

Wow, lots of butthurt about anonymous comments on this Internet

[...] their Goliath realizes they can’t can’t go toe-to-toe with their little competitor. According to reports, Twitter seems uninterested in taking that [...]

[...] CEO, Evan Williams claims he would not even sell Twitter for $1 billion even though its appraisal price is $250 [...]

That is amazing…I find it very difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that a dot com would even ask for a billion dollar price tag.

Not bad. Approximately $1 billion times revenue sounds like a good deal.

[...] trương thanh thế của mình. Tuy vậy, sau khi đọc bài của Tôi Yêu Google và TechCrunch thì mình nghĩ thông tin Google muốn mua lại Twitter là có [...]

[...] love-fest with Twitter today, but you never know. After all, rivals have been snooping around, flirting with the [...]

[...] they have no interest in the micro-messaging service? Of course they do. It just may cost them more than a billion dollars to satisfy their fixation. And Microsoft is starting to get a fixation too. Remember when the two [...]

[...] acquisition talks with Facebook fell apart last fall, and before similar talks with Google also went nowhere this spring.  A lot of the meeting dealt with Twitter’s acquisition angst and trying to decide [...]

[...] acquisition talks with Facebook fell apart last fall, and before similar talks with Google also went nowhere this spring. A lot of the meeting dealt with Twitter’s acquisition angst and trying to decide [...]

[...] acquisition talks with Facebook fell apart last fall, and before similar talks with Google also went nowhere this spring. A lot of the meeting dealt with Twitter’s acquisition angst and trying to decide [...]

[...] acquisition talks with Facebook fell apart last fall, and before similar talks with Google also went nowhere this spring. A lot of the meeting dealt with Twitter’s acquisition angst and trying to decide [...]

[...] toate acestea, surse din TechCrunch spun ca directorul executiv al Twitter, Evan Williams nu l-ar vinde nici pentru un miliard de [...]

[...] Abril de este año, corrió el rumor de que Google podria comprar Twitter por 250 millones. Ante esto, el CEO de Twitter dijo que no lo [...]

[...] around $1 billion. One billion dollars. And even at such a number, there are sources that say the company wouldn’t even sell at that pricetag. Yeah [...]

[...] involved. And they clearly think Twitter is worth more than $1 billion dollars. And they’re hardly [...]

[...] And likewise, without knowing the details of its latest round, the $1 billion number probably does have meaning for Twitter. If an when it closes this latest $100 million round, those investors are going to be looking for an exit of more than $1 billion. You can bet that T. Rowe Price wants to make money on this deal, as do the firms involved. And they clearly think Twitter is worth more than $1 billion dollars. And they’re hardly alone. [...]

[...] losing traffic for the month of June. I’m sure Evan Williams is at least second guessing that rumored ~$250 million offer from Google and the valued $500 million he was offered from Facebook back in [...]

[...] Search.Twitter.com The instantaneous search, Real time search results. Did you know Google recently offered Twitter a Billion Dollars to acquire it. Most likely for the [...]

[...] if any money is changing hands. Twitter has also been in talks with Google about a direct-data deal for months, but Facebook is also apparently in discussions with Google about including public status updates, [...]

[...] First they tried to buy Twitter. That was the best move they could’ve tried. Unfortunately its founders were not impressed and really believed in their company. Reportedly they said they wouldn’t sell for a billion dollars. [...]

[...] Update 3: see here. [...]

[...] tried to buy up Twitter in the past, without success. Twitter is resistant to a sell off, even at $1 billion, but anything can be bought if the price is [...]

[...] thinking about buying Twitter. Apparently, the company didn’t not want to sell — even for a billion dollars. Twitter has since raised a huge new round of funding at a billion dollar valuation. [...]

[...] thinking about buying Twitter. Apparently, the company didn’t not want to sell — even for a billion dollars. Twitter has since raised a huge new round of funding at a billion dollar [...]

[...] status updates, share links, blog posts, photos, videos, and more. But Google, which tried and failed to buy Twitter last year, is still studying its various features and building some of them into its own [...]

[...] year, rumors surfaced multiple times that Google was in talks to purchase Twitter for a hefty sum. Ultimately it was [...]

[...] status updates, share links, blog posts, photos, videos, and more. But Google, which tried and failed to buy Twitter last year, is still studying its various features and building some of them into its own [...]

[...] Twitter，在 Gmail 中集成 Buzz 可对 Twitter 形成足够的威胁力，迫使它重新回到谈判桌上。Buzz 未在 Google Labs 里试水就直接出现在 Gmail 的前端，这次 Google [...]

[...] Twitter，在 Gmail 中集成 Buzz 可对 Twitter 形成足够的威胁力，迫使它重新回到谈判桌上。Buzz 未在 Google Labs 里试水就直接出现在 Gmail 的前端，这次 Google [...]

[...] service after numerous articles circulated last year about Google trying, unsuccessfully, to acquisition Twitter. By definition of the service that it offers, Twitter would be a huge amount of data to add to the [...]

Everyone has their price you would have to be a fool to turn down that much money for a social networking site which are proven to have an extremely small life span.

The plot thickens daily. I’m loving watching this one from the sidelines…but 1billion?