Google buys Twitter for $6 Billion
Google has finally succumbed to the pressures of reality and ponied up the cash to buy Twitter for $6 billion dollars (mostly cash plus some serious seats at Google). Twitter is now owned by Google, as it should be.
That’s the headline I think we’ll see soon enough, when Google gets over itself and swallows the bitter pill. The mistake was already made… more than once…. when Google failed to truly demonstrate the value of Twitter to its future. Had it offered a sweet enough deal, it could have bought Twitter before. Everyone has a price. But with each passing week, Google (and the rest of us) see more and more clearly just how essential Twitter is to Google’s future. And each wek, the cost of acquiring Twitter goes up.
One of these days, Google will make the sacrifice. The question is when… and whether Google will survive the transaction.
October 29th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I’m not so sure…given the financial conservatism of late, even with Google, getting a $6bn purchase through for something with a lot of hype and not much depth may be hard for even Eric Schmidt to sign off on.
The recent data access deals with Bihoo (or is it Yahing?) and G may push any deal back but with the advent of “Google Social” and with the full release of “Google Wave” not too far away, G may not need to make an acquisition…just find/present the results in a more convenient, sortable way. And depend upon everyone’s Google “habit”. We’ll all be watching with interest…
October 30th, 2009 at 2:26 am
You just fooled me the first 10 seconds with this title :)
October 30th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Nice one. Or should that be Nice try? :)
October 30th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
In my personal opinion Twitter is a perfect match for Google. They will proceed as usual - e.g. remedy technical problems and then start monetizing Twitter by PPC advertising. However the price is a bit high. At this price they could have bought Facebook.
November 3rd, 2009 at 5:56 am
Google buying Twitter wouldn’t surprise me at all. Buying Twitter for $6 billion is definitely remarkable.. but surprising? Not much.