Rumors that Google is contemplating a takeover of Twitter, 140-character-or-less communications giant saw its value rising by about $1 billion (some say it was a s much as a 4% rise) on Tuesday, due to heavy buying.
The rumors have noted two companies which have contacted Twitter with a serious intent to buy—Google being only one of them.
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Twitter has reportedly hired Goldman Sachs to advise to recommend the best ways to repel those advances.
The 10-year-old Twitter has a market cap of better than $34 billion, with 288 million active monthly users with decidedly short attention span.
Google, apparently, is sitting on $60 billion in cash, according to analysts, which has become really difficult to store, and ambitions galore to be a major player in social networking. They want what Facebook has.
Does Facebook want to be the biggest search service in the planet’s history? No, they don’t. So what gives?
It comes down to making money. More money, that is. Facebook is doing a better job than any other internet company getting user attention and the ad revenues that come with it.
Google’s Google+ social network is so behind Facebook, it’s pathetic.
So, Google will buy Twitter, or do a hostile takeover, whatever it takes, and get itself access to social networking which it will then blast with Adsense ads and everybody will end up hating Twitter.
“Google buying Twitter would be like Microsoft buying Yahoo, Matt Rosoff wrote in Business Insider Tuesday.
He reminds us of the time Microsoft was worried about Google dominating the search universe, and making minced meat out of Microsoft’s own Bing (yes, so pathetic), so Microsoft figured it would pick up the number two search engine, Yahoo.
Then Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he was lucky Yahoo had fought the takeover and Microsoft walked away—following which the economy tanked and Yahoo shares lost more than half their value.
Close one.
The Internet doesn’t have many rules of thumb. It’s too young. But it does have a few fundamental notions, and one of them is: two lesser services combines will not beat the winning service—all things being equal. Not if the winner service keeps updating its stuff and stays ahead of the curve. Makes no difference how much money you’ll throw at it.
BTW, they’re also talking about an AOL-Yahoo merger. That would be like your grandmother and your unmarried aunt opened a bake shop together. Sure, all their friends will come by and order stuff. Occasionally.
How did these people make so much money when they’re obviously so very dense?
