Google's acquisition of Twitter reportedly at advanced stage
by Stevie Smith - Apr 3 2009, 15:45
Not yet confirmed, but a little twittering bird says Google is ready to splash the cash. Image: Twitter.
Having racked up a staggering 1,382 percent year-on-year audience growth rate between February 2008 and February 2009 (Nielsen NetView), micro-blogging service Twitter has now reportedly become a prime acquisition target for search engine specialist Google Inc.
And, if current Net chatter is to be believed, the California-based Internet giant is on the verge of securing the purchase of Twitter, with negotiations said to be at a “late stage” regarding a deal totalling more than $250 million USD.
Technology watchers at TechCrunch have pointed to unnamed sources closely situated to both parties, who have confirmed the advanced progress of the talks and said that Google and Twitter are also considering pooling their resources in order to create a new real-time search engine.
Reports surrounding the potential acquisition come after Twitter integrated a search engine into its service earlier this week, providing its users with homepage access to keyword and phrase-based searches and also the ability to save results and follow the searches made by other Twitter users.
Appearing on The Colbert Report on Thursday of this week, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone offered no hint of any impending purchase, instead choosing to insist that Twitter will retain its status as “a strong, profitable, independent company,” that will remain based in San Francisco.
Interestingly, FOXNews points out that Google is headquartered around 35 miles outside of San Francisco. However, social network behemoth Facebook, which has already had a buyout attempt rebuffed by Twitter, is located in Palo Alto in the San Francisco Bay Area.
According to monthly figures put forth by Nielsen NetView, Twitter’s popularity has increased massively over the last twelve months, surging from just 475,000 users in Feb 08 to 7.04 million in Feb 09.
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