Apple Rumored To Want To Buy Twitter 325
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?"
I will quit twitter (Score:5, Insightful)
and nothing of value will be lost.
Don't care. (Score:4, Insightful)
Value based on what, exactly? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Twitcher (Score:3, Insightful)
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'.
Grab the money and run (Score:5, Insightful)
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".
Was getting bored with Twitter anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
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?"
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Triple sell is flashing. (Score:1, Insightful)
Take a lesson from the founders of Skype, who sold it to Ebay and are probably laughing still.
Re:The Guardian says this is hot air (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One thing is for certain... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Business Plan (Score:3, Insightful)
Can someone remind me how Twitter makes money. Or, at least how to justify a $700 million valuation?
A few possible ways to derive value:
1) Corporate cockblock - Apple spends a little cash to make sure nobody else turns it into the Next Big Thing in some way that threatens the iPhone.
2) Eyeballs. I'm sure some beancounter will compare this deal to other ones to see how much each pair of eyeballs, or "impression", is worth in terms of valuation.
3) Ad revenue (related to #2). Do some research on how one might attach an ad to twitter messages. Possibly very short ads attached to the end of the messages? Possibly with opt-in text ads (need to make them of actual interest to user).
4) Iphone exclusives. Make Twitter better with some sort of iPhone integration. I'm sure the Apple folks could do something creative there better than I could speculate. In that case, the valuation would be related to the expected bump in iPhone sales, or upselling of plans.
Does any of that amount to $700M? Who knows.
Re:I will quit twitter (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never used twitter...
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
What value (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Business Plan (Score:5, Insightful)
The ??? used to be selling the attention you generate on your free service to advertisers. Google AdSense being the most profitable one for many. But it seems like the attention economy [howtonotma...online.com] is coming to an end, or at least the potential has been greatly reduced.
Twitter doesn't include ads in their tweets or even on their website. According to this Create a Revenue Model for Twitter contest [businessinsider.com] they don't generate any revenue.
Twitter isn't worth anything right now other than what investors would like to get back if they sell. I can't think of any way that their customer base could financially benefit any other company. The folks at Twitter seem to be in the same boat since they haven't been able to generate any significant revenue from their users.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Brand Name (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [faqs.org], Section 5.1) or earlier (RFC 742 [faqs.org], 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.
Re:Twitcher (Score:4, Insightful)
reminds me of selling a pencil at 50% loss but 'making it up in volume'.
Easy :
The quick buck artist pencil seller:
The scare-monger pencil seller:
The commodities market manipulator pencil seller:
Re:I will quit twitter (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything, this is just an attempt to link Twitter to a company that has a very large wad of cash (which isn't that common right now), as well as one that mass name recognition (namely Apple), in order to increase Twitter's apparent value, either for more funding or to sell part/all of the company to somebody else.
Nobody at Apple is stupid enough to buy an SMS service.
If there was somebody this dumb at Apple, they would have already spent way to much for an instant messaging service (I bet you could buy AOL's IM service at fire-sale prices if you took the rest of AOL with it from TimeWarner).
Twitter - "triumph of humanity" (Score:5, Insightful)
Twitter. Triumph of humanity [apple.com]
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.
Correction (Score:1, Insightful)
3 times the *sellers'* estimation of twitter's worth. To me, twitter ain't worth .
Re:Value based on what, exactly? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you think a rumor that Apple might buy Twitter would raise it's stock price?
Re:Grab the money and run (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I will quit twitter (Score:5, Insightful)
any privately held company is under no compulsion to sell anything regardless of incentive.
Yeah. Craigslist immediately comes to mind.
twitterverse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How they COULD make money (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
It Would be Nice... (Score:3, Insightful)
if you have to ask... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Value based on what, exactly? (Score:5, Insightful)
The value is based on a consistent 24/7 wankfest known as Twitter, and a large base of 21st century snake oil salesmen aka social media commentators.
Want to see what Twitter is really about? Go watch it during a large scale emergency (find out whatever the hashtag is, then watch the bullshit fly in). It's the biggest wankfest in the history of wankfests. Every second comment is something like, "OMG TWITTER HAS COME OF AGE" or "OMG TWITTER IS REALLY SHINING THROUGH ON THIS EMERGENCY".
But when you look past the bullshit, it's just the same shit OVER AND OVER with nothing of value offered whatsoever. People linking to already existing news stories. People retweeting non-sourced rumors. You could subscribe to a variety of RSS news feeds and get the same (but better) information, or go down to the local bar and listen to drunk guy offer his opinion.
I have watched twitter during the Victorian Bushfires, and the recent Israel-Palestine debacle. Both times the majority of the tweets were crap. They didn't offer shit, it was a mish-mash of chaos, rumors, linking to news sources, and poor information.
Seriously, the media severely overplays the value of twitter. Probably cause it's the ultimate representation of the 21st century: mass democracy (everyone has an opinion) + short sound bites for the ADHD/MTV generation = popularity with black rimmed glasses wearing social media nerds.
Don't get me wrong, there are some parts of it that are ok. If you had an existing (closed) social network it'd be alright to communicate to each other (but you could do the same on facebook).
Re:The Guardian says this is hot air (Score:4, Insightful)
that's why they need twitter, if they control twitter they can make the rumors believable again and this allows them to make more money!
Re:The Guardian says this is hot air (Score:4, Insightful)
Hipsters use both.
Re:Twitter - "triumph of humanity" (Score:3, Insightful)
To the celebrity-obsessed, it allows following of celebrities like no gossip-rag ever could.
That's it right there, you nailed it. Twitter is a tool to help people follow the lives of other people. That's why it seems like it has little to no worth for people who are more interested in living their own lives than following others.
One of the Classic Blunders (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
Re:Twitter - "triumph of humanity" (Score:3, Insightful)
I work from home and I am relatively secluded during my work day. I am not a social butterfly by any means, but I like to talk and socialize to take a small break. Twitter gives me the opportunity to have those quick social interactions during my work-day.
I am also an in a field where there are a lot of others in the same or similar fields on Twitter. I get professional benefit from following them and, hopefully, them following me (thought I don't subscribe to quid pro quo following. If I find you interesting, I will follow you.) I am able to ask and answer questions, be alerted by events relevant to my job, and generally share outwardly. Not all the chatter is professionally focused, but enough is that it is worth while.
Twitter is a tool that unlike the IRC is open enough that you can more or less control how much stuff is sent to you by following folks and is closed enough that you can really limit the spam you receive. In fact, I rarely, if ever, get a spam Tweet. The trick to make Twitter successful for you is to build a network that is relevant to you. I don't view my follow or following count as a contest (thought others do). I view it from a quality stand point. I have far more followers than I follow. Frankly, I don't know why some of my followers follow me (and I don't mean spam bots, either).
If, however, you focus on the numbers, then you become innundated with spam and other bad behavior.
Re:Don't care. (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is twitter any less useful than Facebook?
I can keep track of what my friends are up to (so much as they want to share that), especially people I no longer see all that often. I can look at the public timeline and see major events unfolding around the world before the media even covers them, and I also follow some non-personal accounts that keep me up-to-date with other useful information. For example, recently I've caught wind of a couple of interesting webinars from nVidia and driver update notices all without giving them my e-mail address and subscribing to a newsletter. Lots of us also followed accounts for the Mars lander. You can follow services like woot.com to get notified of new deals. You can actually converse with influential people otherwise unreachable inside big companies on topics that you're interested in without going through customer service. Most recently, some of the best information about the TWC debacle has appeared through twitter before it did anywhere else.
I tire of this constant parroting of "twitter is useless". If you don't understand what is good about twitter, if you don't find it is useful for to you, then don't use it, but stop spamming any discussion around the service with your ignorance.
There are plenty of services on the Internet that I personally see little value in but hey, millions of people wouldn't use this stuff if it's "useless".
Re:The Guardian says this is hot air (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One thing is for certain... (Score:3, Insightful)
The typical geek probably doesn't socialize enough to warrant such an opportunity to use something like Twitter, so that's part of the reason why Slashdotters don't understand its appeal.
Slightly trollish, but accurate.
Re:Twitter - "triumph of humanity" (Score:4, Insightful)
http://search.twitter.com/ [twitter.com]
Want to know what's happening right now in that major sporting event (or get an update on a somewhat more obscure sporting event)? Want to hear people's views on that great episode of the TV show you just watched, or the latest takes and interesting links on the world's breaking news events.
If there's buzz about anything or anyone worth buzzing about, you can get it in real time. The world's opinions, raw and unfiltered, aggregated instantly.
I've been plodding around the Internet for 15 year, and this is the closest I've seen to something that lets you feel the pulse of the beast.
Re:One thing is for certain... (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't it better to be at a bar with 100 friendly losers than sitting in your moms basement telling Slashdot how useless twitter is?
Re:I will quit twitter (Score:3, Insightful)
Google didn't pay 1.65bn, they actually paid most of the price using their highly overhyped and overinflated stock. So they were paying for one overinflated stock with another overinflated stock - net result, nothing of value was lost and most of that 1.65bn was actually notional and didn't really exist as such.