Apple Looking to Acquire Twitter?

[MacRumors]

TechCrunch reports that they've heard that Apple may be in late stage negotiations to buy Twitter.com for $700 million. Of course, when they checked with their other sources, they were told they knew nothing of the sort... making this rumor seem very questionable.

Twitter is a social messaging platform that allows users to broadcast short messages to "followers". The web app has seen a recent explosion in growth with massive publicity surrounding celebrity usage. Ashton Kucher and Oprah are some of the biggest celebrities to recently start participating on Twitter.

Perhaps the biggest reason to doubt this rumor is that there seems to be no clear synergy between Apple and Twitter. Twitter continues to run on venture capital funding and has yet to find a revenue stream.

Article Link: Apple Looking to Acquire Twitter?

[johnnyjibbs]

This seems even less likely than Apple acquiring EA. What is Apple going to do with Twitter? How are they going to make any money from it? Moreover, with its very public stream and APIs, how is it going to help sell Macs or iPhones?

[icloud]

I'd be pretty okay with Apple acquiring twitter. All of my friend using twitter seem to be mac users.

I'm on twitter as: @Sound_wav

[iPhoneNYC]

What I don't like about Twitter is it's falseness. A-Rod doesn't twitter when he's going to shoot steroids, etc. It's highly controlled PR. 140 characters of it. False glossed-over news will where thin after the fad of it wears off. From my perspective, it would be like Time acquiring AOL. It's not a good move.

[foobarbaz]

That's about 1$ per APPL share. What a waste of money.

[mobius42]

I think Jim Cramer is trying to manipulate Apple's stock price again. Where do these crazy rumours come from!?

[Virtuo]

This is interesting news. I initially heard this from: http://valleywag.gawker.com/5240350/...le-buy-twitter . Again just interesting . Not entirely sure if I'd like it to be true.

[kenzbud]

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Two take over rumors in a row? Something fishy is going on here : /

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

This has to be one of the most stupid Apple rumors I've ever heard...

[Makosuke]

I disagree--EA is one of the stupidest takeover rumors I've heard. Twitter at least has the "small, hip" thing Apple likes very much. I don't exactly see how Apple would benefit from buying the company, as the iPhone is already well-positioned as a Twitter client and it's by nature a free and platform-agnostic service, but it makes more sense than an immense broad-spectrum game developer.

Still, I don't see it happening unless the board in place of Steve is getting buzzword-happy on the acquisitions. More likely a stock-manipulation scheme, I'd say.

[Linkmobile]

Apple should buy Macromors

[melchior]

how and why? what resources does twitter have that apple wants? god forbid it should be somehow tied into the useless monstrosity that is mobileme. maybe however, they want jack dorsey to fix mobileme? or at least make it useful. buying him out for $700million is one way to do that...

but really, this, just like the ea business is bunk because it has nothing to do with apple. twitter already acknowledges it has no revenue stream and ea is not about to start producing all it's titles natively in opengl.

[t0mat0]

Originally Posted by kenzbud

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Two take over rumors in a row? Something fishy is going on here : /

Agreed - I think the article recently talking about the strong quiet increase in stock price of AAPL to a level above a price it was at before hedgers got bearish on Apple has some bearing on the situation.

TheStreet's David Tong relays that FastMoney's Guy Adami claims that there is "chatter" that Apple is eyeing an Electronic Arts takeover.

From Techcrunch on the Twitter fritter theory

“Apple is in late stage negotiations to buy Twitter and is hoping to announce it at WWDC in June,” said a normally reliable source this evening, adding that the purchase price would be $700 million in cash. The trouble is we’ve checked with other sources who claim to know nothing about any Apple negotiations. If these discussions are happening, Twitter is keeping them very quiet indeed. We would have passed on reporting this rumor at all, but other press is now picking it up.

Twitter is strongly signaling that it doesn’t want to sell at any price right now.

Officially silly May WWDC run up season, now we've got close enough and the stocks high enough.

Jim Cramer admitted as much, so i'd imagine there are others
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...ipulation.html

And The Street isn't the best
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/0...mation-engine/

Fomenting the market against Apple, however, "is very easy, because the people who write about Apple want that story. And you can claim that it is credible because you spoke to someone at Apple, because Apple isn’t in [a position to comment on unannounced products]. It is an ideal short."

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/company-n...ds-tech-parade

Guy Adami said Apple shares have enjoyed a great run, up 47 percent for the year, but he said the prudent step here would be to take profits. "I can't go piling on the back of these earnings hoping they've just sand bagged the next quarter," he said.

[commander.data]

It makes more sense for Apple to take over one of those internet video sites like Hulu than Twitter. Twitter may be popular, but I'm not sure how much value it adds to Apple's product line.

[iOrlando]

this should be on page 10 not page 2.

[twoodcc]

now i wish this would happen, but i doubt it will. but i would like to see more twitter stuff in ilife and the sort

[Willis]

unlikely... EA was fishing with no bait... this is fishing without a pole

[Randman]

Originally Posted by Makosuke

I disagree--EA is one of the stupidest takeover rumors I've heard.

EA means more iPhone games which means more demand for iPhones. EA makes all kind of sense. Twitter? Not sure how Apple could leverage it to its advantage.

[rdowns]

Ridiculous rumor. Simply created to get page views.

[koobcamuk]

Apple won't buy Twitter.

If they do, they will censor the **** out of it and then people won't use it anymore. For ****s sake.

Originally Posted by Randman

EA means more iPhone games which means more demand for iPhones. EA makes all kind of sense. Twitter? Not sure how Apple could leverage it to its advantage.

EA makes no sense at all. Think about it. Think.


EDIT: Breaking news: Apple to buy Microsoft.

[Randman]

Originally Posted by koobcamuk

EA makes no sense at all. Think about it. Think.


EDIT: Breaking news: Apple to buy Microsoft.

I think you should think about it. And comparing EA to M$ is just daft.

[lazyrighteye]

No. Way.
Nope.
Huh uh.
Not happening.

[Tilpots]

Originally Posted by kenzbud

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Two take over rumors in a row? Something fishy is going on here : /

Whether it's the run up to WWDC or not, two take over rumors in this small amount of time might mean something. Neither makes much sense, but it seems some chatter about Apple is occuring right now. Guess we'll just have to wait and see what it is. I personally still hope it's TiVo, but that's a whole 'nother rumor from years ago...

[Michael73]

Stop and think about this...

If there is one thing that Apple does better than make hardware and software, it's preserve their operating margins. They didn't get their current cash position by not paying as much attention to profit as their design and usability. With that said, social media platforms are nice but no one has yet cracked the nut on how to turn social discussion into a revenue stream. Apple is not going to buy or invest in a business unless there is a solid business case behind.

[MikeTheC]

Ya know, at this rate, I think I'm going to start up a business designing humorous t-shirts using all open-source software and sell it to Apple.