Twitter needs Google and Google needs Twitter. And this isn’t about Twitter making money. So what’s the deal?
Google’s participation in the internet’s social service revolution is broken. The likelihood they will ever be able to produce a Twitter-level product is extremely slim. Buying Twitter would make Google the major player (with Facebook) on the social side of the web…which is now the biggest part of the web, and growing larger all the time.
Twitter’s service is broken, unreliable and they often seem to be their own worst enemy in making things work. They have even stated that some planned fixes would be put off “indefinitely.” Google makes infrastructure work well…amazingly well. It’s in their DNA. They could fix Twitter. And Twitter desperately needs fixing.
But Twitter would need to negotiate a deal that guarantees it significant independence to continue growing and innovating the service, and significant infrastructure support from Google. If Twitter can get Google to help build a better Twitter, it would be good for everyone.
Now, Twitter could also be acquired by Facebook. And if Twitter made a similar deal it could work out well for them. But I think a Facebook-owned Twitter would never be independent.
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Great prediction, I just recorded it on Beansight (http://www.beansight.com/prediction/google-will-acquire-twitter)
It could make sense for Google to buy Twitter because Google work a lot to have content in real time for their search engine. But I’m not really convinced that it will be a good deals for Twitter. If they want a better infrastructure, there is much better was to do it for Twitter.
I thought so too…for years. But Twitter has shown no signs of improvement.
I can’t see Facebook acquiring Twitter – there are simply too many anti-trust hurdles to cross. As it is, I think Google might have a hard time convincing the legislators that there will not be anti-trust issues if they were to make a play for Twitter. But yes, Google should buy Twitter to get into the social networking space.
Excellent point, Len! FB would have a tough road to hoe, for sure.
Twitter should remain twitter, why does it have to be acquired? However, if twitter-facebook mash up would occur, it would be interesting. Many of the services that Twitter offers would appear on the FB page. Twitter would lose it uniqueness. And, Google would be kicked out of the social media space.
If Google takes over Twitter, Facebook will have a hard time. It will remove the stupid Google Buzz service that it has and replace it with Twitter. I don’t know if it would do the same mistake of integrating it with Gmail. Google already owns YouTube so acquiring Twitter would be a great achievement, a blow in the face of Facebook.
I agree, Twitter should remain Twitter. And Google would definitely be very competitive in trying to edge out Facebook in the being the one doing the acquiring, as you point out.
I agree with you. Social Networking is one field Google needs to work on. Google wave and Buzz didn’t do much and even Orkut isn’t well known globally. Acquiring twitter would definitely get Google a boost in the real-time social networking field.
I really doubt Facebook would be able to compete with Google in the race for acquiring Twitter – in terms of resources as well as need.
I tend to agree, but Facebook’s culture is the most similar to Twitter, so they may have an edge there.