No One Wants To Buy Twitter (theverge.com)

At one point, it seemed that many were interested in purchasing the micro-blogging social platform (which now calls itself a news service) Twitter, but its fate is quickly drying up. Salesforce (which couldn't buy LinkedIn) showed the most interest in Twitter, but this week its CEO Marc Benioff said his company has "walked away" from making a bid to buy it. The Verge sums up the situation: If you're keeping track, that's now... pretty much everyone who's said they're not interested in buying Twitter. Neither Google nor Disney plan to bid on Twitter, despite reports saying both were interested. Recode says that Apple is likely also out of the picture. And Verizon immediately dismissed speculation that it was considering a bid. Facebook is also said to be uninterested, according to CNBC. And while Microsoft's name has been tossed around, no one seems to think the acquisition would make any sense for an increasingly enterprise-focused company.The situation is so bad that as soon as the news of Salesforce withdrawing its name from the bidding race broke, its stock quickly went up by 6 percent, while Twitter's stock registered a 6 percent drop.

Comments

I want to buy Twitter.

[Yaztromo]

I have a nice crisp clean $5 bill here I'll be happy to pay for them. I'll even throw in a bag of doughnuts.

Anyone want to outbid me? Anyone?

Yaz

Gee

[Oligonicella]

Who'da thought turning into a 24/7 SJW promotional/hit site wouldn't work?

Re:Gee

[Mashiki]

Whenever I hear the phrase SJW I think here's a stupid person that lacks the ability to form a coherent argument.
I'm sure I'm not the only one...

Don't worry. It's a general label for a very specific group of people it's much easier then saying: They're a group of people who have very pro-authoritarian leanings, anti-free speech, stand against many if not all democratic western traditions, and believe that using physical or psychological intimidation is justified(aka no bad tactics, only bad targets), that the one who can claim to be the most oppressed and virtue signaling the loudest is at the top of the pyramid and actual activism is far too difficult isn't it? Besides, it's their own label. Guess it's too bad for them instead of actually doing something positive, they decided that engaging in negative actions which people associated with it, which is their problem.

I'm sure someone is going to come out with a "good job blahblahblah it's lost all meaning..." or some rot. Never mind that said term has really only been in the general public lexicon for oh maybe a year, two years tops(but then you'd have to admit that things like Gamergate, sad puppies, general anti-authoritarian stances have had a far larger public impact on society then the on-going claim that GG is only 300 people, or sad puppies is full of white males who live in their moms basement). But I'll happily remind the people who are now running for a reply, that you're likely among that same group that has abused English so badly that "sexism, racism, misogyny, etc" has lost all meaning.

Re:Gee

[Anonymous Coward]

You're definitely not the only one who thinks that.

Probably 90% of the time when I see someone use SJW, it can reasonably be taken as a sign that the person really wants to say something wildly politically incorrect but doesn't want to be called out for it, so he (and it's damn near universally a male) resorts to a euphemism.

And let me be clear: People arguing against political correctness are just as bad. They're almost universally the ones saying, "I want to be a belligerent asshole and say whatever I want, with no regard for how it affects others, and I don't want anyone else to criticize me." That's just a vile form of snoflake-ism. If you can't act like a reasonable human being, then don't feign outrage when people don't treat you like a reasonable human being.

Re:Gee

[AmiMoJo]

What you describe sounds like some conservatives, yourself included. The ones who want to silence criticism (like the Eich debacle) and inflict their dogma on others (like so called "religious freedom" and "bathroom bills").

Re:Gee

[Whibla]

I tend to agree that the 'real' money, or rather the 'real' profit, is made by capitalising on tiny fluctuations in the share price over periods of less than a second. Tiny amounts of profit, times lots and lots of transactions, on a continuous basis = huge profits.

However, it doesn't add liquidity in any meaningful fashion, and it doesn't provide any benefit to the corporation whose shares are being traded or to a wider society. It is, purely and simply, economic parasitism.

The simple solution is a miniscule transaction tax on every share, either purchased or sold (your pick, my preference would be those sold, with the exception of the share offerings made by the company selling its shares for the first time - resales / reissues, after share buy backs would incur the tax).

With this system, since the purchaser doesn't face increased costs there's no practical reason for any reduction in available liquidity, and it effectively destroys the system that allows the parasites to exist, by adding proportionally significant costs to their existance, while adding, proportionally, no significant increase in cost to long term share investors.

The only remaining question in my mind would be whether to make the tax a flat, albeit very small, rate, which would affect the sales of lower value stocks slightly more than higher value ones (if only because of investor perception based primarily on lifetime percentage growth figures), or a variable rate tax based on the price of the shares in question, which, while removing this perceptual disparity, would slightly limit the effectiveness and removing all the parasites from the system.

I'd be happy to leave wiser minds than mine that decision though... if only governments (or even the exchanges themselves) had the courage to implement the system in the first place.

Re:Gee

[Mashiki]

What you describe sounds like some conservatives, yourself included. The ones who want to silence criticism (like the Eich debacle) and inflict their dogma on others (like so called "religious freedom" and "bathroom bills").

Uses "you're a conservative" yep. There's that "everyone who isn't like me is a conservative" bit, would have been better if you'd used the usual right-wing, at least you'd have been consistent like your previous claims. Sorry, who was the group that threatened and pushed Eich out and jumped all over him for his own private viewpoint that had zero to do with his job? Which group was it that threatened the head of a advertising agency for having an opinion against the current orthodoxy? FYI it wasn't those "scary conservatives."

Want to name the universities in the western world that are so conservative that they're shutting down debates because the students will be "triggered by people who aren't left-wing" are discussing issues that they don't want discussed. Was it those "conservatives" at the University of Toronto that attacked a reporter? Nope in both cases. The last time I remember a religious conservative in the news, it was an anti-abortion protest, and it was again left-wing students who attacked, and assaulted the person. FYI since you're in the UK, how many times have groups like "antifa" violently attacked people in the last 10 years for not having the right opinion.

By the way, which dogma is it that's mine, the one that doesn't exist or the one that doesn't exist?

Re:Gee

[Mashiki]

Right, in sure that put Google off, I mean can you imagine them implementing some kind of SJW bullshit real name policy on their social media sites?

Sure did, how'd it work for youtube? How's it working for every site that implements the "facebook commenting system." You should know already, very poorly. If anything the actual discourse decreases and personal attacks increase. And on top of it, the number of people deciding to try getting people fired for "wrongthink" increases.

More likely it's because the extreme trolling and Twitter's slow reaction to it has damaged their reputation, devaluing their brand.

Someone has never been to a chan site or usenet in their entire life.

Re: Gee

[Anonymous Coward]

Uses "you're a conservative" yep. There's that "everyone who isn't like me is a conservative" bit, would have been better if you'd used the usual right-wing, at least you'd have been consistent like your previous claims.

The defensive holier than thou-ness of Mashiki, right here folks. Consistent to a fault.

Sorry, who was the group that threatened and pushed Eich out and jumped all over him for his own private viewpoint that had zero to do with his job? Which group was it that threatened the head of a advertising agency for having an opinion against the current orthodoxy? FYI it wasn't those "scary conservatives."

Don't worry, there are plenty of other examples of behavior, for example the reaction to Colin Kapernik, to the Dixie Chicks, the actions of Judge Roy Moore, that clerk in Kentucky, numerous comments and actions by police forces documented in DOJ investigations...

Want to name the universities in the western world that are so conservative that they're shutting down debates because the students will be "triggered by people who aren't left-wing" are discussing issues that they don't want discussed.Was it those "conservatives" at the University of Toronto that attacked a reporter? Nope in both cases.

Want to learn about Liberty University? Want to learn about the people who suggested ramming protesters in North Carolina? Want to learn about the one that did happen in Reno, Nevada? Want to learn about the terrorism planned in Kansas?

The last time I remember a religious conservative in the news, it was an anti-abortion protest, and it was again left-wing students who attacked, and assaulted the person.

That's odd, they're in the news all the time. Right now, for example, they're intervening in a custody dispute between two lesbians. And threatening revolutionary violence, if somehow their candidate doesn't win, because they just know, know, that it is all rigged.

By the way, which dogma is it that's mine, the one that doesn't exist or the one that doesn't exist?

Your dogma seems to be the blindness of seeing only evil on the left, while refusing to recognize it elsewhere. Whicj is nothing new, your editorials could have been written after Haymarket Square.

Re:Gee

[AmiMoJo]

Funny, you think everyone who isn't like you is an SJW. The difference being that "conservative" describes a political philosophy and is not an insult. Your tactic is to accuse people of labelling you when of course labelling is only a problem when the label is negative. It's a classic silencing tactic.

As I said, you want to silence other people and use every low down trick you can think of to do it. It allows you to be authoritarian while pretending not to be.

And then, as if you anticipated by point and decided to help by proving it, you start ranting about Eich again with the unwritten subtext that being allowed to criticise him is somehow a bad thing because it had negative repercussions for his career. To your credit, your assault on other people's free speech, their right to criticise, is relentless and consistent (in that it only applies to views you don't like).

You are everything you claim your worst enemies are.

Re:Gee

[Mashiki]

Looks like it's safe to assume you haven't seen any of the videos that have emerged from some Trump rallies.

You mean like those people physically attacked by anti-trump protesters in California, or the anti-trump protester macing a couple of little girls. Or the 20+ vehicles that were vandalized?

Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Value

[Nova Express]

It seems that Twitter's stock price has nosedived precipitously since appointing radical Social Justice Warrior Anita Sarkeesian to their newly formed “Trust and Safety Council.” Since then, Twitter has:

* Banned Robert Stacey McCain
* Banned Milo Yiannopoulos, AKA @Nero, permanently
* Suspended Instapundit
* Shadowbanned Anna Maria Perez
* Forced James O'Keefe to renove a Tweet and perform a spite reset

And after having damaged their brand and destroyed billions worth of shareholder value, lo and behold, no one wants to buy them! Gee, turns out that alienating half your user base at the behest of a tiny cadre of radical feminists is a lousy business strategy...

Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu

[murdocj]

Somehow I don't think blocking a few rightwing nutjobs caused Twitter to lose value. Maybe it's that the big boom of "hey we've got lots of users we must be worth a lot of money" is over, and potential buyers now want to see evidence that such companies actually make sense as a business.

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does Twitter need to be bought by anyone? What's with this endless obsession about mergers and acquisitions and consolidation and stock market riches the west has?

Let Twitter do Twitter.

Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu

[Z80a]

When thousands start to suspect something is up and stop trusting the platform, you do lose a significant number, but indeed its not nearly enough to actually destroy twitter, although may be a good sign that the people in charge of the platform don't actually know what is wrong with it or how to fix it because they're enclosed into this small bubble.

Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu

[Anonymous Coward]

I love it how three of your links were to some crank blog/news roll, the same one no less...and one of them was to Twitter.

I guess it's a good thing Slashdot's new corporate masters are promoting the comments of crotchety old fucks like you to the top, we'd hardly want to miss out on this sort of wisdom. /yawn

Feel free to shadowban mods, I've got better things to do than wait for this site to stop sucking balls.

Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu

[Shane_Optima]

Somehow I don't think blocking a few rightwing nutjobs caused Twitter to lose value.

I agree insofar as I doubt that it's caused some kind of massive drop in traffic or ad revenue, but the existence of drama surrounding it might be the reason why some companies don't want to bother with the potential headaches.

For example, given the right crowd your little dismissive "a few right wing loons" is fuel enough for a rollicking debate. Twitter (and Youtube and others) only care about censoring the Christian and secular right wing. They do not censor Islamists, who are part of the extreme right by any reasonable measure. The left (and now more and more also the mainstream) defend them even as they try to silence the conventional secular/Christian right wing in America or western Europe, often silencing them precisely due to their criticism of the Islamic right wing.

Do you have any idea what the tweets look like on the Arab language version of Twitter? Go plug some into Google Translate and find out. While atheist bloggers were being hacked to death in Bangladesh, do you know what was trending on Arabic Twitter? #KillAllAtheists.

The new owners would have to decide whether or not they're going to do something about this stuff. The new owners would have to decide whether or not to re-ban Milo if he tried to create a new account. The new owners would have to decide whether or not to dissociate themselves from Anita Sarkeesian, an irrational, misandrist, anti-free speech lunatic whom Twitter should never have put in a position of power.

I don't think there's some sort of highly damaging boycotting of Twitter going on at this very moment, but that doesn't mean these things are entirely irrelevant.

Re:Twat?!

[sittingnut]

Why not?!

what is the use of a "micro-blogging social platform" or a "news service" that acts against free speech.
as a private company they are free to ban people for hurting others' feelings (btw nothing worse can happen in that platform), but must deal with consequences.

And what destroyed that argument was...

[MikeRT]

Banning people like those in the list. Regardless of what you think about them, Nero was one of the most followed accounts on Twitter. Robert Stacey McCain and Instapundit are also huge names outside of Twitter with tons of followers both on Twitter and on their blogs. None of them, including Milo/Nero, were actually blocked for actions that most people doing a due diligence examination of the value of Twitter's user base would find acceptable.

Nero was blocked for "harassing" Leslie Jones. Actually, his followers were. Meanwhile if you're the right group you can also dox and call for the rape and murder of teenage girls who say the wrong thing to you on Twitter and get away with it if you're one of Twitter's favored groups.

You're so full of shit it's unreal. Literally the only people who pretend that Twitter hasn't turned into a SJW shithole that even attacks mainstream liberals are SJWs.

Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu

[Gussington]

We really need an 'opentwitter' system. Twitter has demonstrated the need and power of this sort of communication,

No we don't. Twitter is a microcosm of stupid and if it went away overnight there would be zero impact to the lives of most normal people. Millions of idiots would have to find another way to see what the Kardashians are up to today, but regular life would function quite fine without it.

Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu

[Yaztromo]

And after having damaged their brand and destroyed billions worth of shareholder value, lo and behold, no one wants to buy them! Gee, turns out that alienating half your user base at the behest of a tiny cadre of radical feminists is a lousy business strategy...

Yeah, except that's not the reality of the situation.

As of Twitter's latest earnings report, its user base grew more than expected, up to 313 million active monthly users. Their problem has been a softening of advertiser demand, which has reduced revenues below expectations.

Indeed, all of the companies interested in buying Twitter have only been interested because of the reduced shareholder value. Twitter isn't a good buy-out candidate when its stock value is worth more than the real value of its assets; it's only when its market value is at or below the value of its assets and expected revenues that it suddenly becomes something everyone could be interested in buying out. As such, the "destroyed billions worth of shareholder value" is actually a good thing for a company looking to buy them out -- you buy low, not high.

So congrats -- you've invented an argument by working backward form a premise, while ignoring basic math and economics. Because if your argument had any real merit, any big company could buy Twitter, fire Ms. Sarkeesian, re-instate five accounts, and suddenly they'd be able to increase the value of the company by billions. But here's a hint -- the advertisers don't care who is visiting Twitter, or what their politics are. The fact that they gained over 3 million monthly visitors in the last reported quarter (to 313 million) is all they are going to care about -- and advertising is virtually all of Twitter's revenue. But advertisers are going elsewhere -- and its certainly not because there are some butt-hurt Conservative Justice Warriors who can't handle people calling them out for being complete douchbags. These companies have looked at Twitter's fundamentals, and it appears they come up wanting. Perhaps after they lose a few hundred million more in value someone will snap them up.

Yaz

Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu

[Shane_Optima]

I'd offer to simplify it even further: the problem is that many progressives haven't made the jump from "oh wow, western civilization has done a bunch of crappy things" to "oh wow, everybody has done a bunch of crappy things."

The ignorance of, denial of and/or rigid prioritization of grievances is the overriding problem among most post-modernist / progressive / SJW crowds. From it flows all of the cancerous bullshit that has caused so many former self-described leftists to distance themselves.

I want to smack each and every one of them upside the head with pool noodle and explain that everyone everywhere has done a mountain of shitty things. Yes, people as a whole suck... but there are specific bits and pieces worth saving and these value need to be recognized and saved and promoted without regard to the owner of the brain or mouth from which they come tumbling out. Simply badmouthing America or the West or imperialism or neo-imperialism solves nothing, nothing at all, and their bleating often betrays a profound ignorance of the past and current crimes of China, Russia, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran or whomever else they deem exempt from criticism due to the fact that a few of our past politicians made a dick move or three.

Twitter is not profitable

[indytx]

All the talk about censorship of certain users misses the point. TWITTER IS NOT PROFITABLE. Twitter has been around for, what, 10 years, and it still cannot make a profit. It has a stupid business model because TWITTER DOES NOT MAKE A PROFIT. If someone had a decent idea how to monetize the service to turn a profit it would have done so. Dorsey took charge, again, and still no profit. The headline could read "No One Buys Money Losing Tech Company."

hardly surprising

[ooloorie]

As a platform, the main distinguishing feature of Twitter compared to other platforms is that its 140 character limit makes any kind of discussion impossible, and that it strongly favors social signaling and self-righteous indignation as the primary modes of communication.

I doubt advertisers want to see their products seen in such a divisive, biased, and angry environment as Twitter, and it isn't even useful for market research because its user population is so unrepresentative.

Facebook is not Twitter

[lucm]

Facebook makes about ONE BILLION dollars in profit every quarter. They have virtually no debt. You may not like social media but it's a profitable business for Facebook.

Twitter is something else.

Re:Twat?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever notice it's the same geniuses who want less regulation and government who cry the hardest when private companies do something they don't like?

Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu

[ooloorie]

Twitter is a microcosm of stupid and if it went away overnight there would be zero impact to the lives of most normal people

I think Twitter is a honeypot of stupid, which makes it useful in my book.

If Twitter went away overnight a few hundred thousand rabid and confused people would be let loose to wreak havoc on other sites.

Re:Twat?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever notice it's the same geniuses who want less regulation and government who cry the hardest when private companies do something they don't like?

Individuals and groups pointing out (or even "crying hard" about) something they consider wrong, is not the same as government forcing everyone to obey its current ideology.
You suffer from basic inability distinguish between free speech and tyranny.

In any case here they are merely gloating at this company suffering the inevitable (and predicted by them) consequences of suppressing free speech in its private platform.