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Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

cnbc.com

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Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#91

Post by dcosson »

hornbaker wrote: post #13

My bet is GOOG. They need a streaming newsfeed product in which to insert ads.

This could be pretty cool. There are times when I search for something that happened recently (say, 20 minutes ago in a live sports game, or if I see 6 police cars blocking off the street out my window) and google has no record of it, or sometimes the news tab stories are now wrong/obsolete. In these cases I'd love to see twitter results, particularly from "trusted" sources like reporters or news orgs or even just from popular sources.

(Presumably Google could work out this deal now without buying twitter. But it could be a benefit, similar to how the videos tab is mostly YouTube).

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#92

Post by __abc »

alex_hitchins wrote: post #70

Might sound strange, but I think this would be a great purchase for Apple. They have the cash, they certainly have the engineers and UI skills it desperately needs. iMessage working brilliantly, but closer integration with a Twitter style feed makes real sense to me.

Actually, with the new iMessages app platform I wish all my Twitter conversations moved to iMessages. If Apple buys Twitter, that would be personally awesome.

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#93

Post by thr0waway1239 »

imagist wrote: post #85

IMO, Twitter is the poster child for the tech bubble. They have users, which is their only claim to viability, but notably, they have never made a profit. Currently valued at around $10 billion with 350 million active users, that's about $29 per user. You'd be hard-pressed to find an investor so foolish that they would invest $29 in each of their users and hope to make it back if it were stated in those terms, but pe…

Your comment actually sort of explains the question I asked. Would you still maintain this view if either

a) advertisers reduce their spend on FB because of poor results and the usual problem with saturation of any advertising channel and start looking at other options, or

b) more events play out in the future where Twitter's place as the "other social network that people actually care about" becomes more important/relevant - e.g. one more mass hysteria event surrounding some censorship from FB, or

c) anything happens to block FB from being able to show ads inside WhatsApp?

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#94

Post by bdcravens »

dvdcxn wrote: post #42
the_duke wrote: post #3

Unclear is what kind of "deal" they are talking about. A considerable buy in? A full acquisition? And, assuming a full acquisition... what would be the gain? Google has a bad story with attempts at social media, apart from YouTube. (Bought Orkut, killed it, tried Google Plus, went nowhere). Twitter is hard to make profitable without alienating the users with too many ads. For Google, it would probably be an acquisiti…

>Twitter is hard to make profitable without alienating the users with too many ads. TBH I don't think google would buy Twitter with the expectation of making money off of it. Its value is its continued data gathering, which would inform other google products.

This, and perhaps a deeper integration in Android.

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#95

Post by gxs »

imagist wrote: post #85

IMO, Twitter is the poster child for the tech bubble. They have users, which is their only claim to viability, but notably, they have never made a profit. Currently valued at around $10 billion with 350 million active users, that's about $29 per user. You'd be hard-pressed to find an investor so foolish that they would invest $29 in each of their users and hope to make it back if it were stated in those terms, but pe…

People always write them off, but I do wonder if it's more of an emotional write off or the fact that as non twitter users, they refuse to see value because they personally don't see value. I'm not a twitter user or advocate but:

106.31M

316.93M

664.89M

1.4B

2.22B

That's their revenue over the past 5 years. Their R&D cost last year was over 800M.

I'm not saying they are Google, I'm not saying they are LinkedIn, but there is definitely big money at play here at a scale investors love (hundreds of millions of users, over 300M at last check) so it might be premature to completely dismiss them.

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#96

Post by staticautomatic »

ceejayoz wrote: post #84
dcgudeman wrote: post #62

By Salesforce?? RIP twitter.

C'mon, no one knows how to run indefinitely at a loss than Salesforce...

Indeed. They've never turned a profit either, right? I still can't fathom how/why they're sinking half a billion dollars into that new building in downtown SF.

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#97

Post by dominotw »

imagist wrote: post #85

IMO, Twitter is the poster child for the tech bubble. They have users, which is their only claim to viability, but notably, they have never made a profit. Currently valued at around $10 billion with 350 million active users, that's about $29 per user. You'd be hard-pressed to find an investor so foolish that they would invest $29 in each of their users and hope to make it back if it were stated in those terms, but pe…

> If you find yourself thinking that Twitter is a company with any real value

What about non-monetary value like playing a key role in 'Arab Spring'[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_the_Arab_Spri...

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#98

Post by ravenstine »

imagist wrote: post #85

IMO, Twitter is the poster child for the tech bubble. They have users, which is their only claim to viability, but notably, they have never made a profit. Currently valued at around $10 billion with 350 million active users, that's about $29 per user. You'd be hard-pressed to find an investor so foolish that they would invest $29 in each of their users and hope to make it back if it were stated in those terms, but pe…

> They have users, which is their only claim to viability, but notably, they have never made a profit.

I am SO glad that someone else realizes this. Many journalists, and lots of regular people subsequently, mistake revenue for profit.

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#99

Post by pboutros »

0x37 wrote: post #87
hornbaker wrote: post #13

My bet is GOOG. They need a streaming newsfeed product in which to insert ads.

What is this inane trend here on HN of referring to companies with the names they are registered to stock exhange?

It shows that we are #savvy.

/s

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#100

Post by MollyR »

RileyKyeden wrote: post #57
MollyR wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that a good thing though ? More choices, more people will self segregate out.

The people I tend to agree with are just as prone to group think as conservative-leaning people. Hate grows in the absence of disagreement, and it doesn't stop at the echo chamber's walls.

So what do you actually want from a community then ? It seems like you don't want certain people in it, but at the same time you do want them in it. I'm not sure if I'm understanding it correctly.
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