iZone International: $10 billion for Twitter?
WSJ reports rumours of Google and Facebook in talks with Twitter to acquire the micro-blogging service. People in the know put the value of at buyout at $10 billion.
Is Twitter worth $10 billion to Google or Facebook? That’s what Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is telling us. The business paper has reported that executives from both Google and Facebook are engaged in low-level talks with Twitter and according to WSJ, people in the know are reporting figures between $8 billion and $10 billion.
This follows soon after the Super Bowl in America, where people were logged on sending a total of 4,064 tweets a second, and both Google and Facebook have reason to be interested in such a deal. Whether Biz Stone wants to or not, it’s safe to assume that his investors would be looking forward to a return on their investment as well.
However, the WSJ report is hedged with a number of caveats, and so it also seems safe to say that things are not very far along the way yet, even if such talks are actually happening. For Facebook, getting Twitter on board would be in line with some of their previous acquisitions, though if the valuation is correct then it might not work out.
On the other hand, it makes even more sense for Google to take over Twitter because time has shown again and again that Google has not been successful with social products. Wave, Orkut and Latitude are all examples of Google getting to a space before the competition and not doing anything, while Buzz lost all its buzz very quickly too.
What will happen remains to be seen, but considering that a lot of people involved with Twitter are those who sold their platforms to Google only to watch them slowly fizzle out, it’s possible that Twitter, which has been gaining momentum again, might remain independent yet.
