Rumor: Apple to #Buy @Twitter?
Dieter rates this rumor at 10%. He may be generous. Never-the-less, noted Silicon spysite Valley Wag is reporting that:
A source who’s plugged into the Valley’s deal scene and has been recruited by Apple for a senior position says Apple and Twitter are in serious negotiations, with the goal of unveiling a deal by June 8, when Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference launches in San Jose.
Valleywag thinks Apple may want to uber-cool web savvy of the Twitter crew for their own. Dieter had another idea: what if they’re looking to spice up a BlackBerry Messenger (MMB)-style service to compete with RIM?
Of course BBM is completely proprietary to BlackBerrys and BlackBerry Connect, while Twitter is pretty much as open a messaging platform as can be, still Apple has been known to weave amazingly slick proprietary versions of software that they, or others, leave as open at its source. (CalDAV, CardDAV, etc.)
Don’t think it will happen. But can we imagine what, if anything, Apple would do with Twitter if they did acquire it? Could they do worse than Google’s done with Jaiku so far?
May 5th, 2009 at 9:11 am
One of the crazier rumors I’ve heard. Doesn’t eBay own twitter?
May 5th, 2009 at 9:15 am
No, Twitter is independent. eBay owns Skype… for now.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:18 am
eBay also owns PayPal. Twitter’s parent company is Obvious.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Silicone != silicon, though who hasn’t made that mistake?
May 5th, 2009 at 9:22 am
interesting rumor.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:23 am
I would hope they are making a universal IM app that will run in the background like mail does instead of relying on push notifications. Probobly not till iPhone 4.0
May 5th, 2009 at 9:27 am
What would apple get out of it if they did buy twitter.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:35 am
D’oh! Meant Silly-cone. Will fix. Thanks! :p
May 5th, 2009 at 10:15 am
Ah, confused I was. That’s right, eBay owns Skype; and may possibly be looking to unload it or the creators want to buy it back.
Not really sure what Apple would do with Twitter in any case. Maybe if Apple bought it though 60% of users wouldn’t leave after 1 month.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Oh gawd! I hope not.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Apple doesn’t do anything if they can’t make some money with it. What they would do? Basically charge you for something.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Wow that is quite the rumor. definently a cool idea. I could dig it
May 5th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
A match made in heaven! Twitter’s service is about as stable as MobileMe. LOL, just kidding, if only a bit. Anyway, I agree 10% is generous.
One thing to consider. If Apple is going to run a push notification service, why buy Twitter? Is it really that much more effort to build a platform for 140 character messages once you’ve scaled up the Push service for the entire iPhone install base? So, take this one logical step beyond and consider that if Apple is going to build and they are likely to stay with their platform then why not use their cash hoard as an excuse to see how Twitter is doing things under the guise that they are interested in buying? Sounds like the ruthless Apple we all know and love.
May 5th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Apple is also rumored to buy out Electronic Arts(EA) both are crazy rumors!
May 6th, 2009 at 5:25 am
@Tom nice thinging but that won’t happen maybe if apple gets thee own IM service