Apple is in talks to buy Twitter, according to an inside source. Cupertino is the latest Silicon Valley giant to be linked to the micro blogging service, but can it be the company to get Twitter’s founders to bite?
We know that Twitter’s been courted by both Facebook and Google already, but according to an inside source, Apple is now in negotiations to buy out Twitter for $700m (£464m) in cold hard cash. If the deal goes through, Apple hopes to announce the Twitter deal before June 8, when the company’s WWDC kicks off.
Even for a company as profitable as Apple, $700m is an incredible sum to pay up front for a business which has yet to come up with a way to capitalise on its 25 million plus users. But our only concern is how Twitter would fit into Apple’s business. Apple may have video and music download on lock with iTunes, but it’s not famed for providing web services otherwise. Would an Apple buy out of Twitter help or hinder the start up? We can’t say, but we’ll let you know if it happens.
Interesting idea, Apple has shown zero interest in social media/web 2.0 to date, but it feels inevitable that they’ll eventually do something in that space. Twitter would instantly give them a massive presence, and with some exclusive features (tweet-to-SMS etc), that might help sell the iPhone, but I can’t see the kind of synergies that would allow Apple to monetise the business in the way that Google might. We’re talking about a company that charges for .mac/MobileMe, afterall.
I suspect this is just random speculation on what Apple is doing with its enormous cash pile.
Either that or it’s part of the whole Google-Apple axis-of-evil we’ve been hearing about…