It wouldn't be the first time that Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone make a sale to Google, who sold Blogger to Google just over 5 years ago. Some sources indicate Google are in the final stages of the deal, while others state they are just beginning - but it is confirmed, a deal is being negociated.
Twitter turned down an offer to be bought by Facebook back in November for $500 million, based mainly on the face Facebook stock was overvalued. This isn't a problem Google would face, making the purchase in either cash or public stock even with Twitter's recent valuation coming in at a respectable $250 milion.
Why would Google want Twitter?
It's been quite a hot topic, especially around Further - the possibilty of Google using Twitter data to improve search results. Twitter is sitting on a vast chest of data - real time data. It doesn't need to crawl, collate and compare, almost everything you need to determine the popularity, relevance and quality of pages is there and it's up to the minute.
With the launch oh http://search.twitter.com - the Twitter search engine, many people have begun to see Twitter as a player in the search field. Combining this data, with Google's huge index the possibility of an incredibly accurate real-time search engine is a distinct possibility. Such an acquisition would go a long way to cementing Google's prime position as top search engine for at least a few more years.
Is this a good thing?
For Google, it's going to be a smart acquisition with Twitter's value still on the upward curve and more brands diving in of the tweetfest everyday. From a user point of view - possibly with the chance of higher quality search results, but possibly not with Google owning another cornerstone of the web.
Post by Further search marketing.