Being Twitterpated could cost Apple $700 million

While a single Tweet may only be worth 140 characters, it seems a Twitter could be worth a whole lot more: $700 million. The virtual rumour mills have been whirring away at the prospect that a cash-flush Apple may be about to splash out on the Web 2.0’s current poster child, with sites like Valleywag and TechCrunch reporting talks already could be well under way.

History reminds us that News Corporation consumed MySpace and Microsoft bought into Facebook – so on the face of it Apple taking at least a bite out of Twitter makes sense. However, since November all the murmurings coming from the head Twits suggest they want it to remain independent – and their culture of openness wouldn’t exactly be a great fit with Apple’s well-known secretive nature.

It’s thought Apple’s recent glowing profile of Twitter – improbably entitled “Twitter: Triumph of Humanity” – is fuelling the rumours. Here’s an excerpt: “Twitter’s meteoric rise to ubiquity is proof positive that the world, in all its complexity, is eager to embrace simplicity. Wielding more impact on social networking than most communication tools this generation has yet seen, Twitter is one of those universal phenomena where the product name self-conjugates.” Reading that, who wouldn’t think love was in the air?

Well, it turns out TechCrunch for one isn’t sure if the pair really are going to be married together: “Twitter is strongly signalling that it doesn’t want to sell at any price right now”. While an apparently “normally reliable source” made it known “Apple is in late stage negotiations” to acquire Twitter, nobody’s been able to back up these claims. “If these discussions are happening, Twitter is keeping them very quiet indeed. We would have passed on reporting this rumour at all, but other press is now picking it up” – and, of course, the other press is drafting in TechCrunch as a source for good measure.

The whole notion of Apple getting a slice of Twitter’s had people like Silicon Alley Insider’s Nicholas Carlson trying to bear-bait Microsoft into action. “If Redmond really wants to carve into’s Google search business over the next 10 years, it needs to offer whatever it takes – $800 million? $1 billion? more? – to buy Twitter right now,” he writes. Elsewhere, it’s being reported Microsoft’s well on the way to finally acquring Yahoo instead – and that deal at least now seems likely.

[ Financial Times | Guardian ]

Tags: apple, Facebook, Google, M&A, microblog, Microsoft, Twitter