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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
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?
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
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.
Its more than the application. Its the millions of users that come with it.
Twitter is hugely popular and has no earthly idea how to capitalize on that popularity without killing itself. It's like every other Web fad, before long it's going to fade away and be replaced by something at least as inane as it is.
The only hope for the Twitter founders is to sell to someone with deep pockets and few brains as quickly as possible. I don't know why Apple would want it, but maybe some old media company with more money than brains would.
And so did GeoCities and AOL but that didn't work out too well for Yahoo and Time Warner respectively. Users are fickle. They will move to other apps as trends dictate. Really I don't see the benefit to Apple. Now Apple might be talking to Twitter about better collaboration and integration.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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?
And how many of those millions aren't already included in the millions they have from the iPhone? Or the iTunes Music Store?
No, I don't buy it - and I bet Apple won't either!
Culture is more than commerce
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?
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.
I'd like to meet the person that coined the word "twitterverse". And hurt them. A lot.
Twitter is the most useless waste of time and human resource.
I don't use it myself, but I've seen it come in handy on a number of occasions. I was at WWDC last year, and I went to a bar with a couple of friends. One of them posted where we were, and twenty minutes later we had a party with about a hundred people in attendance. Rather more convenient than looking up a bunch of people and calling them.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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."
All the really interesting people were at the real parties.
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.