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Apple Rumored To Want To Buy Twitter
OSXGlitch writes "A post on TechCrunch this morning extends the rumor that Apple wants to buy Twitter with part of their massive cash reserve (estimated at nearly $29B). The Twitterverse is alive with speculation that the price being discussed is $700 million. This goes against reports that Twitter's founders aren't interested in selling, and that they estimate the value of the company at around $250 million. Two questions: How do we all feel about the possibility of Apple owning Twitter? And, can Twitter decline an offer that is nearly three times their estimated worth?"
and nothing of value will be lost.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This Guardian article argues that the story is complete hot air, the two sources (Tech Crunch and ValleyWag) are both unconvinced themselves and the Twitter execs seem to be in the wrong part of the US to be locked into negotiations with Apple.
Leaving aside whether it is true or not, it seems a very strange fit. Apple doesn't seem to gain very much in its core business from the acquisition
Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
It would, at the very least, make for a much better Tweet App on my iPhone....
I hope that Apple has more sense than buying this hugely overrated and overhyped Twitter thingie.
Twitter could be owned by the legion of doom and it still wouldn't make it interesting or remotely useful.
And, can Twitter decline an offer that is nearly three times their estimated worth?"
And how exactly was that value derived? Value is based on the present value of future earnings, and AFAIK, twitter has none. Any number in the hundreds of millions of dollars should be seriously looked at. What I don't understand is what Apple would do with Twitter.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
1) Launch free web service
2) ???
3) Profit
Can someone remind me how Twitter makes money. Or, at least how to justify a $700 million valuation?
Why? What is the point of Twitter?
I hope Apple is not planning wasting money on a worthless fad like Twater
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Is there really much point in buying twitter? How difficult a thing is it to write that application? Or is the purpose almost entirely to grab the existing users?
And how would this fit into Apple's strategy? I could think of much better ways that Apple could extend their MobileMe service.
The whole thing seems slightly fishy to me.
twitter is worth exactly as its user-base is. Or in other words, is it really $200M as web page where users can send their short messages?
Rumour...
Perturb the stocks...
Cash in.
Twitter used to tweet twats into twondering about stwock twinvestments.
Stupid twunts.
As seen on Twitter.
I don't know, to me this Twitter tool is really synonymous with some sort of a twitch. Wouldn't the more appropriate name be 'Twitcher' with a slogan: Waiting for your twitch!
Seriously, 700 million USD for this just shows that a dollar is not worth that much today and also it shows that people don't know what else to invest their money into, they would jump on anything, reminds me of selling a pencil at 50% loss but 'making it up in volume'.
You can't handle the truth.
Hello, this is a yahoo and I'm a twit...
This reminds me of Novell buying Word Perfect. Paid over a billion dollars, couldn't sell for $100m just years later if their life depended on it. If Twitter refuses the offer, they are dumber than a sack of bricks. In a few years no one will pay attention to them. Just another useless, 15-minute-of-fame "Oprah technology".
End anonymous moderation and posting on
Even if your name is Apple.
Seriously though, this would be a better fit for Google wouldn't it, since they are an information and advertising company.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
At first milidly interested in the technology, eventually appalled at the general lack of content.
Or to put it another way, twitter is the sound of millions of people collectively discovering they have nothing important to say. Or in today's "Pickles", "Is it me, or is the world getting sillier and sillier?"
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I don't use twitter now and if this happens, I'll use it even less.
Take a lesson from the founders of Skype, who sold it to Ebay and are probably laughing still.
I'm interested in knowing how these numbers like $250m and $700m come about. I see absolutely no monetary value in such services, even the so-called ad-revenue or social data mining models all seem like big loss harbours rather than sources of profit.
Are we back to the late 90s "no business model yet possible future earning potential" view of businesses?
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
I don't see how you could turn down 750 mill for shitter! Useless and all hype.
Seriously, I'd like to see this sucker buried. How about a log of EVERYTHING you do, where, with whom, &c. &c. and who you know, EVERYTHING they do, &c. &c. plus add photos/videos. Writing on the wall? Surprised Google isn't buying it, but Apple wouldn't be much worse. People really are sheep.
Find out interesting keywords in what people say they are doing or talking about.
Advertise something local and highly related to that person, in the form of a discount offer or something.
Google ads for the attention-span-of-a-gnat generation?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
What is this, drphildot? Why should we "feel" anything? A private company wants to buy a private company.
Unless you are a stockholder, you should feel that private entities should be left to their own devices.
It's a per user price usually.
Are we back to the late 90s "no business model yet possible future earning potential" view of businesses?
Yes.
It would be a lot more convenient to dislike them if they were under the same roof. I could just brush Twitter off in the same breath as brushing off OS X or the iPhone. The time I would save!
...and in conclusion I'm hoping Apple doesn't buy Twitter because Twitter's a fad and will be worthless in a few years. Thank you, I'll collect my check at the door.
can Apple get out of it that they can't just using the API?
Selling advertising isn't really what Apple does.
I could see Google speculation, although I would rather they implemented there own.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Twitter has a very well known brand-name, probably about half of which comes from people bitching about it, or cracking jokes ("ok poop is coming out"). The application itself is nothing short of a status message, which where defined as early as May, 1993 (RFC 1459, Section 5.1) or earlier (RFC 742, December 1977 - finger w/plan), and there are dozens of "microblogging" sites out there already.
If anyone buys Twitter, it will only be for the most over hyped and thus well-known up-and-coming brand names of the last couple years.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
First Steve kills the Newton.
Then, MacBooks with no FireWire.
Now this.
OK, OK, we get it already. You hate us.
"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus
Twitter. Triumph of humanity
I admit I don't get the fascination.
Technically, its DIY IRC channel meets party-line SMS. Cool. The "how" I get.
But WHY? The "why" completely escapes me. Is Twitter more profound than the inanity of IRC and the incessant texting of pubescent students on public transport?
At best it looks like a way to share spontaneous brain dumps with mates, at worst it seems like a pathetic attempt at social closeness between a bunch of strangers you wouldn't even look at if you bumped into them.
Whatever it is - if Twitter is humanity's triumph then we're f**ked.
Either that or I'm an old fart.
iTwit anyone?
3 times the *sellers'* estimation of twitter's worth. To me, twitter ain't worth .
It's hard to think of a more ideal match.
Apple is very close to the point of self-parody.
Apple will use Twitter to attack the PC market and force Macs upon everyone. Just like they tried to infect PCs with that FinallyFast software...
First off, it's not even rumor-mongering -- it's some hack making shit up to increase his pageviews.
Secondly, it's a stupid idea.
Thirdly, it ain't gonna happen.
Fourthly, everyone expects Apple to buy everything (Sony, Nintendo, Be, Sun, Palm, ...) and they generally don't.
Fifthly, who cares? Twitter's already over. The "cool" people have moved on to hype other new stuff (remember Blogs? remember Podcasts?)
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
1. Create something slightly different than previous attempts.
2. Create a buzz and make it popular
3. Sell out while the perceived value is high
4. Profit!
Let the smucks at Apple try to figure out how to make mass messaging profitable.
I'd like to meet the person that coined the word "twitterverse". And hurt them. A lot.
Can you pare that down to 140 chars pls?
I would be nice if people could come up with vaguely realistic Apple rumours to increase their page hits rather than inane drivel like this. If anyone even remotely thinks this rumour is true then they have absolutely no clue. Period.
Sure, why not?
Why does the rumor mill, mass media, and business world assume that every company that strikes oil on the Internet need to be bought by a larger corporate entity once they've proven their worth? Not that I'm a huge fan of Twitter or anything, but the owners of the company have every goddamn reason not to sell the whole thing to behemoth like Apple.
Sure, they can cash out and get their millions of dollars now. Or, they can use their brains and make Twitter into a solid, consistent business model and make many more millions over the course of years or decades. Do you honestly think Google or Red Hat or Amazon would still be around if they sold out to the first bidder to come along? If Twitter wants to use its current success to build a foundation for a stable long-term company, they must remain agile and simply cannot let some big corporation tell them what's best.
Does anyone care?
Take what ye can. Give nothing back!
i suppose that twitter is cheaper than SMS. My guess is that buying twitter is cheaper than releasing a similar product and then fighting a court case.
Well, it's just a rumor. Apple is always surrounded by rumors and I don't think much of this one. Besides, all the limitations of Twitter make it seem like an u
No.
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
.... that it just might work
Slashdot is for shit nobody cares about.
I agree, of course Apple won't buy Twitter, what would be the point of that? (Admittedly, I'm biased because I don't know what Twitter is beyond some new internet fad and something about a crippled IRC).
... But while we're speculating wildly out of our asses, why not something fun? MacRumors is reporting that Apple might buy Electronic Arts. That at least might provide me as a mac user some decent fucking games. Good thing too, I'm getting really tired of NWN, Warcraft III and Myth II. Maybe then I could finally dump that windows partition for a hacked OS X partition.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
I blve we r the smartest gen ever! My parents r dum and read 2$ newspprs 4 hours. I can read 30 secs on tw and get same info 4 0$ on my cpu!
Now church is embracing twitter, this acquisition can only lead to the sale of more iPhones along the lines of 'little Johnny needs an iPhone because all the cool kids in Sunday school have one'.
Ok, so this is only one church but if such an article was reported in a nationwide church newsletter mass adoption could result.
Twitter is only the beginning to get them to buy the device. Then there are all the faith-oriented downloads from the App Store...
Cupertino, CA, May 5, 2009 - Apple computer is rumored to be buying several flattened cigarette butts on the northwest corner of Castro St. and Central Expressway, in Mountain View, CA for $650 million. The cigarette butts are approximately 40 cm from the nearest curb edge. A squashed aluminum can, possibly a beer can, is in the gutter nearby. A paper bag with the partially wrapped remains of a beef burrito are also lying in close proximity to the cigarette butts, but do not appear to be part of the deal. In any event, a crow has been attempting to unwrap the burrito during most of the morning, presumably to abscond with the remains. Apple spokespersons declined to discuss the deal on the record, but it was made known later that the cigarette butts were in the middle of Silicon Valley, and therefore extremely valuable for that reason alone. One of the cigarette butts reportedly has lipstick stains, but that has not yet been confirmed.
The most famous, of course, is "Never start a land war in Asia," but only slightly less well-known is this: "Just because you can't think of a use for it doesn't mean that no one can."
any posts that reflect apple in a harsh light will be removed and the twitterverse will wither and die because by the end everyone will just be bitching about apple removing their posts.
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
Apple doesn't seem to gain very much in its core business from the
acquisition
actually, twitter could turn out to be a very effective tool for reality distortion.
What uses does it have other than letting people know where Shaq is at or that Ashton beat CNN on subs.
* Running commentary on an event.
* Random thoughts.
* Announcements (news sites, software updates, blogs, etc.)
* Sharing interesting links
* Conversations
* Fiction told one line at a time.
* Tips of the Day
I'm sure if you think about it instead of dismiss it you can come up with other uses.
All of it tied into a single feed that can be access via the web, via a multitude of desktop applications, via smartphone apps, or even via SMS on mobile phones, making it ubiquitous.
Sure, many of these things can be done via email, or RSS, or instant messaging, but Twitter -- or rather, a system like it -- provides a simple way to combine them all into one easily-accessed stream.
If the rumor mill says it's worth $700M and the founders feel it's only worth $250M, and its profits are a big ZERO now and for the foreseeable future, then it's worth $250,000.00 at best.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Who really needed Twitter anyway. E-mail, voice mail, IM, what's next -- five second audio sound bites (sound-bytes) to all your loser followers?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Actually, Steve Ballmer was overheard in the bathroom saying, "Apple is going to die withered," but someone flushed as he said it. Of course, Steve always says this about competitors, mocking the old "wither and die, Microsoft" mantra of Scott McNealy. BTW, Scott's company did wither.
Hey, it's the new new new new new economy.
I can't wait for TwApple to come along and tell me what I can and cannot talk about.
...you are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find ten years have got behind you...
Do people still believe in all the crap Tech Crunch writes about.... ??? I am surprised!!!
Actually, "hugely overrated and overhyped" is the reason Apple should buy Twitter. It's a match made in heaven.
What are the applers gonna do with twitter. I don't see any strong business case here.. I hope that twitter remains independent. If it ends up with apple, it would have the same fate as many of those startups/small scales that were bought by Cisco - A.K.A. - nothing. if it ends up in Google's hands they will atleast try to make a falcon out of it .. :D
There was an article recently that said most twits quit a month after joining. How popular is it relative to facebook? myspace? friendster? My own impression is that it isn't very popular, it just has some very vocal users.
Why would Apple want Twitter? Is Apple a server/webapp company particularly? No. Is there any great value add in owning Twitter? No. Is the idea of twitter particularly well protected. No. So why would anyone take this random noise seriously?
THe 2 CEO's hang out all the time anyways and no other company embraces Twitter like Zappos does
Are none of you seeing the big picture? Apple doesn't want to buy Twitter, the micro-blog service, they want to buy Twitter, the slashdot user. The actual GUY, not the username. They want a slave with a bajillion slashdot sockpuppets to moderate in articles just like this one.
Of course, the companies mentioned back then had "revenues."
To put it in perspective, I hate facebook and myspace.
In any case, I've been trying to moving to Identi.ca for a while--it's free (as in speech), mostly w/r/t getting the content I've created back out when I wan
t to (try that w/ Twitter. Good luck). Of course, my problem is that all my friends (most of whom hate freedom in the funny sense of the phrase) are on Twitter.
If these rumors ARE true (and I doubt it), I'll be jumping ship pretty dang quick, friends or no.
I never even heard of Twitter until the "big media" starting "tweeting" and telling me about on their news shows. That makes me not want to ever "tweet" at all. In fact, I dont think "tweeting" is something I ever considered.
Wasn't there speculation that Twitter was going to be bought out by Facebook awhile ago(thought there was an article here on Slashdot)? I haven't ever used Twitter but that just seems like a perfect match that would serve both companies well in the long term.
But how is Twitter compatible with Apple? Unless there is going to be some sort of exclusive iPhone app.
You're welcome :P
---
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
Say hello to my little sig.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Ha Ha!
Fruit & Twits - an unbeatable mixture...
Oh, and a big grim to the previous poster who talked about "Apple's CORE business", fnar, fnar!
They should take the money while the hype is up and suckers are willing to pony up.
I could care less what Apple's interest in Twitter is, as I don't use either. *dons asbestos long-johns against both fanboys*
Why am I even posting?
Enough of this 'twats' on Apple/MacOS/Windows worm* 'de jour' app.'s BS.
Both are a social fad that will fade into obscurity.
*Yes, Apple is as bad as MicroSoft. Deal with it! And Twitter is just another web-worm that is crawling through the 'popular app's' right now...nothing more...'text only' myspace/facebook for the unknowing, unwashed masses that got caught up in the 'Web 2.0'/'Cloud' hype.
Congratulations...sheep!
Now 'get off my lawn', and 'turn that crap down'!
My karma can stand my posting my opinion here, despite the Apple/Twitter fanboys...YMMV.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
So you tell me someone made something up. And it goes against everything else (like the owners not wanting to sell). And now we should tell you our opinion about it?
Get the fuck out, before a kick your sorry ass, loser! We're not going to fall for that shi.... oh, wait...
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
And we'll import the smilies from MS - Messenger. And give it a ribbon bar. And embed it in your car mp3 player
Sup dawg; I heard you like twitter, so we put an internet in your car so you can tweet while you drive.
Sure, they can cash out and get their millions of dollars now.
Let's see; if I have five million dollars, I pretty much don't have to work again in my life, ever. (I can get a day job if I want, or start a new company, or sit in the couch playing games all day.)
Or I could keep my company, which doesn't seem able to make money, and hope it'll become worth more money on the basis of... hype?
I'm leaning to the "independently wealthy now". I'm not sure what being "more independently wealthy" would buy me---a thicker gold plating on my car? A gold plating on my fifth car?
Apple has destroyed more good products simply by buying them than any other company.
While Twitter isn't really a good product, it can still be destroyed.
Can anyone here actually name a product that got better after Apple bought it?
From that page on apple's site about twitter clearly Apple thinks they have a similar dna.
What could it be used for? Well here's an idea called "Screw the RIAA".
In this monetization possibility (or fantasy you decide), Apple makes twitter groups for every rock band performance in the world, and anybody can twit on it about going there, the band can put special info and links to its site on it, you can basically start an indie craze from nothing.
Now Twitter makes me gag and I would hate using it or being forced to read it. But, it might be neat if you opened it to a lot of people per channel and used it to focus interest, the way usenet groups used to, and you can maybe make anybody with an Apple iphone etc. become a potential uploader to some flash crowd twitter group.
These band appearances and twitter threads lead people to the band's site for info, and to iTunes to download the band's stuff for money, and this is a realization of the model that everyone has talked about for ages about how to screw the RIAA and get bands to communicate and sell directly to their fans. Same could go for films, books, etc.
Only thing is, I don't see any reason why you couldn't build the same thing (twitter lookalike, easy, and iTunes type sales portal, not so easy). I suppose having the hardware and iTunes associations already, and the mass and early to market edge, might be enough to make Apple take a chunk out of the RIAA's sales and give authors a higher income. That and the advertising for ipods, iphones and iTunes, would be neat and might be worth the cash.
Apple rumored to be in the rumor business
Trent Reznor's lame attempts to regain the relevancy he had twenty years ago by being the stereotypical rocker and latching on to youth culture is not a ringing endorsement of anything outside his marketing savvy.
Remember when everyone was buying the "UNIX" name a few years ago? Then SCO was caught as the last stupid company holding the name?
I've found no redeeming value for twitter, facebook, myspace, much of google, Just use jabber/xmpp instead with your friends.
Never in any field of human endeavour have so many posted so often about so little of value to be read by so few.
How on earth would Apple make any kind of return on Twitter?
The Twitter bird _would_ look a lot better with a drop shadow.
When it comes to channels of communication, like Twitter, we get worried when a company takes it over because we worry that censorship or other pernicious activities may commence.
The fact remains that if/when this happens another channel of communication opens up. So why bother about the commercial greed of the less than ideological founders of the latest trendy comms vehicle ?
Far more likely is that someone inside Twitter started a rumor about Apple buying Twitter so that interest in Twitter will go up, increasing its sale value.
People are starting to catch on that Twitter is chat, except with an incredibly slow, unreliable, barely usable interface. They have crested. Now that they are no longer going to be growing exponentially, it's no longer going to be a fun place to work. Time to sell.
---don't make me break out my red pen.
I'd be a twit to not take the money and run.
Twitter Twatters * find their natural Hone.
* Both Twit and Twat are a term of abuse in the UK.
to kill Twitter for good.
The sad thing is that there really isn't all the much information in the world.
Two recent dutch events occured. One a crash of an airplane near Amsterdam, claimed by twitter to be reported first by a twit, and turned it wasn't. Radio reported it first. NOT even news radio, just a music station that got SEVERAL call from listeners and when they had multiple sources, they aired it. BEFORE any twitter feed.
Even more recently, an attack supposdly on our queen by someone driving their car through a crowd and missing the tour bus but killing 6 people and wounding several. Again what were the twitters supposed to do? Regular news was there, the twits could report nothing, no more details and no faster then the regular media.
The biggest problem is that twitter by its nature is SLOWER then regular reporting. Why? Because regular news media have spend ages optimising the flow of information so it can be pass on as quickly as possible. But say some twit sends a message, how are you supposed to know about it? You can read them all, there is no pre-set labelling to make it possible to get accurate info on what messages might intrest you. By its size and speed it becomes impossible to monitor.
And so we get the common effect of people swithing to their twitter feed when the regular media have told them something is going on, desperate for info they are unlikely to get any sooner then the trained journalist are.
Twitter has a place, but it is just another way of communicating with plenty of shortcomings. About the only "big thing" it got is that you can easily send a whole lot of people in the same channel a message. It is an email mailing list made a easy. A mass SMS for subscribers only. Whoopie!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
And, can Twitter decline an offer that is nearly three times their estimated worth?
Last time I looked, 3 * 0 = 0.
If Apple buys Twitter, or even anything resembling an influencing share in Twitter, I'm gone.
I don't voluntarily use anything Apple, and I don't intend on changing my mind.
I disagree with their customer handling skills, and I disagree with their terms on most products they offer.
Apple would be better off taking their money elsewhere,- like inside their own doors. Didn't they just let go of several software teams?