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Sources: Google In Late Stage Talks To Acquire Twitter

techcrunch.com — 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.

Who dugg this? Made popular Apr 3, 2009

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  • beatitlikeacop, on 04/03/2009, -9/+55Good. I hope they buy twitter and rename it *****.com
  • Tddupre, on 04/03/2009, -0/+16Google:
    Has All Of Your E-Mail
    Your Videos
    Have Pictures Of Your House On Street Level
    All Of Your Web Searches

    Now they want to know what you are doing at all times.
  • Anevilweasel, on 04/03/2009, -1/+13I hope not...especially after what they did to Jaiku.
  • 5hocker, on 04/03/2009, -2/+13updated: we're totally wrong
  • lucian303, on 04/03/2009, -7/+16twitter sucks anyway so if they kill it, let it be
  • Archon810, on 04/03/2009, -0/+8Google could also build a video site in less than 6 months, so why buy youtube? Oh wait, they did and it sucked donkey balls. Google is sitting on a ton of cash - they can afford to make another key acquisition easily, and twitter is an amazing brand. Gwitter, ugh.
  • inactive, on 04/03/2009, -2/+10I typed "No One Gives a ***** About What Im Doing On An Hourly Basis" Into google and the first site was a rant about twitter. Ha.





  • Megatronz, on 04/03/2009, -0/+7Proof that Google wants to take over the internet.
  • Tddupre, on 04/03/2009, -0/+6Umm You are on one it is called Digg
  • nurbsenvi, on 04/03/2009, -0/+6One step towards to the world domination.
  • spudsstuff, on 04/03/2009, -0/+6Oh I'm not sure I like this rumor
  • BigVi, on 04/03/2009, -3/+8and youtube
  • sinuegoist, on 04/03/2009, -0/+5I don't use Twitter. And I have nothing against Google personally. But I would like to see one nice start-up project to stay in the hands of the original owners for abit longer than 2 years. Just for the heck of it. C'mon guys.. be the first for a long time, now.
  • diskit, on 04/03/2009, -0/+5Don't forget satellite photos of the entire world.
  • HigherLogic, on 04/03/2009, -1/+6At least they'd have a decent infrastructure...
  • inactive, on 04/03/2009, -0/+5Hot sake and cold unagi, is anything more sublime?
  • MightyUpsetter, on 04/03/2009, -0/+5They WANT to sell.
  • enantiodromia, on 04/03/2009, -0/+4that is a fair question; not everyone works in the industry so not everyone knows how it works.

    i do, so here is your answer:

    "When you have more money than God, all startups are potentially "building it for you" in the first place."
  • DeathRay2K, on 04/03/2009, -0/+4Who didn't see this coming?
  • MightyUpsetter, on 04/03/2009, -2/+6No it isn't.
  • rmamuaya, on 04/03/2009, -0/+4and this is not necessarily a good news ..
  • LilRabbitFooFoo, on 04/03/2009, -0/+3Anyone can write Twitter in 6 HOURS. Still don't know why everyone hasn't just added this to their own social websites.
  • fretslide, on 04/03/2009, -4/+7Burried for twitter.

    No one cares what you are doing .
  • oddlyzero, on 04/03/2009, -4/+7I had hope that someone else would buy them and use real time search to open up a serious hole in google's armor...but no (microsoft)....G rolls on.
  • inactive, on 04/03/2009, -0/+3in this day and age when "dot com bubble burst 2.0" could be just around the corner, you would have to be an idiot NOT to sell at the first offer that allows you and your entire family to live extremely comfortable for the rest of your lives.

    When the bubble bursts again (and it will eventually) Google itself may not have the money to make these purchases.
  • rmamuaya, on 04/03/2009, -2/+5don't forget grand central.. it took 'em 2 frickin years before they actually do something to it.
  • celerityfm, on 04/03/2009, -0/+2If this goes through I expect it'll be similar to Google's purchase of Blogger (which was made by the same people behind Twitter), so fear not.

    Now, as to why, Blogger and Twitter both enable content creation and also enable search within that content. That's where Google comes in-- revenue from search advertising is the name of the game, Twitter search is quickly becoming as important as blog search and Google wants to insure that when you execute that search you do it through them.

    Owning the back-end of Twitter would enable them to add Twitter content to their search results in ways they can't now, in ways that otherwise would be exclusive to Twitter and could make Twitter the destination for people's search and not Google. Coincidence that rumors of talks sparked up the same day Twitter rolled out a new UI that placed search prominently on the user screen? I think not!
  • inactive, on 04/03/2009, -0/+2They are buying the hive mind.
  • 3leggedHorse, on 04/03/2009, -0/+2All your internets are belong to us.
  • MAGZine, on 04/03/2009, -0/+2It would be a good buy, no question. Only thing is, I'd hate to see the life escape it as which has happened with Google projects before. I'd imagine Google would buy them and let the current founders do their thing.
  • bicyclethief, on 04/03/2009, -0/+2Sergey's got that amount on him in his sock.

  • gbhall, on 04/03/2009, -0/+2They have other things such as your credit card info etc
  • mustarks, on 04/03/2009, -1/+3Google is worried about Twitter's real time search capabilities, so rather than work to improve theirs it sounds like it will be easier to just buy out the competition.
  • inactive, on 04/03/2009, -0/+2Google is seriously biting off too much here.
  • inactive, on 04/03/2009, -0/+2they could build one, but not get their userbase.
  • sinuegoist, on 04/03/2009, -0/+2Yes, well, I doubt there was anyone out there who might have thought a company would reach to the "late stage of negotiations" with one side not considering selling. Nevertheless, if you pay close attention, I said "I would LIKE TO see.."
  • inactive, on 04/03/2009, -6/+7Why would Google want to buy something so incredibly useless?

    Twitter = buried.
  • Archon810, on 04/03/2009, -0/+1Biz Stone, one of the co-founders, was on Colbert Report last night and he said they're planning to stay an independent company. Is there much truth to that? I guess we'll see, but it's one more vote against this rumor.
  • etechonline2002, on 04/03/2009, -2/+3twitter "beta"
  • Kash0341, on 04/05/2009, -0/+1Opppsss. I read it also here http://www.arabianbusiness.com/551590-google-repor ... . Mean Giant remains to be a Giant... :)
  • Antibland, on 04/03/2009, -0/+1Doug Bowman must be smacking his desk right about now.
  • inactive, on 04/03/2009, -1/+2Why sell out now?

    Ask Friendster.

    Or any dot com company that said that Mark Cuban was CRAZY to accept Yahoo's offer for Broadcast.com and decided to stick it out for another few months before trying to sell their own reasonbly sought after site until late 2000.

    That's why.
  • kanojo1969, on 04/03/2009, -0/+1This would be a terrible tactical move, purely because twitter is vastly overvalued at the moment. With all the PR it's gottten lately, the price is probably double what it was 8 months ago.

    For that reason alone, I doubt this story is true.

    While I'm am it, I really wish the 'twitter is useless, I don't want to know what you are doing every 5 minutes' crowd would just stfu already. Twitter can be used for that, but it's real value is in corporate -> customer communication as well as getting the latest thoughts of industry doyens/pundits etc. I personally don't use it because I know for sure there's o audience for me, but in the two categoeies I mention it is a unique service that's finally got some traction.
  • krystalo, on 04/03/2009, -0/+1Buried as inaccurate. It's TC after all.
  • inactive, on 04/03/2009, -1/+2It is only quicker when you compare it to sites like Digg where BREAKING in the title means it happened 14 hours ago.

    You know what else is good for 0 minute information? (for ACUTAL newsworthy events, I mean) NEWS sites. Or the NEWS.
  • diskit, on 04/03/2009, -0/+1Does Google have to own EVERYTHING on the internet?

    geeze
  • byronm, on 04/03/2009, -0/+1They WANT to sell because their is no MONEY being made. Its a dot-com company all over again. Reality is, twitter is only a brand - the service could be developed on any platform by any means and if anyone could do it any better - it would be google. They wouldn't NEED the brand in the end anyway.
  • bffoley, on 04/03/2009, -0/+1I was going to say "Who?" but that's probably your point.
  • TheBlueVulcan, on 04/03/2009, -0/+1Well, that's one way to make revenue.
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