There is no way Twitter is going to sell itself for under 1B. They already raised at a 250M valuation, and with the team of investors they have behind them, there will be a lot of pressure to hold out until 1B or somewhere close to that.
Sources: Google In Talks To Acquire Twitter
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Re: Sources: Google In Talks To Acquire Twitter
#32This is the worst thing that could happen to twitter. Google's brand doesn't have quite the same cachè it used to. Today, it means being bought with no improvements to the service for at least a year after that. Look at Grand Central and Jaiku as examples.
They wouldn't have to brand it as Google. Think: Yahoo buying Flickr. I also could imagine some pretty terrible things happening to Twitter... like, for example, the site displaying "FUCK OFF" on every page load, forever.
That certainly does seem unwise.
Re: Sources: Google In Talks To Acquire Twitter
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meh. Start a site, like longbets, where you retroactively compare pundits' predictions with what actually happened.
HubDub (a prediction market) has been doing this for nearly a year: http://punditwatch.hubdub.com/ TechCrunch's score is a telling 13%.
these scores are not comparable because they are missing a critical piece of the puzzle: the likelihoods of your predictions.
I predict everyday for the rest of the year that the dow jones will be above 2 and below 4 million.
The right measure is to take the difference between market and pundit opinion (you know like a real market, except unlike companies these always end at 1/0 on a certain date - like a covered option) and average that.
This is their real performance.
Re: Sources: Google In Talks To Acquire Twitter
#34Not buying it. This is Google we are talking about, their main move has always been to release their own version of the service, hope to win, and only if that fails, do they open up their pocket book. But a broken clock is still right twice a day, so who knows, maybe Arrington's source isn't full of it
> This is Google we are talking about, their main move has always been to release their own version of the service, hope to win, and only if that fails, do they open up their pocket book.
But it failed! See what happened to Jaiku
Re: Sources: Google In Talks To Acquire Twitter
#35I find it funny how Arrington links to previous posts where he cites himself having some profound knowledge about the importance of a company or product. Hey mike, you're a journalist, not a CEO. When it comes to business, you really don't know your head from your ass.
Would you say that in person? No? Then don't say it here.
By the way, I think Mike has posted here once or twice.
Re: Sources: Google In Talks To Acquire Twitter
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of those just started: http://wrongtomorrow.com/ I should start adding Mike Arrington quotes, he's almost as bad as Scoble.
exactly the idea I had for a site.
Wow, I guess I'm #3. But my idea quickly expanded into a full fledged "credibility index"- because why not keep track of present-day claims they make about things already known to be false? It seems like one in the same issue to me.
And wouldn't it make sense to quantify the vagueness/concreteness of statements made? It's easy for a pundit to say something is "dangerous for America" without giving a specific consequence, and people who make specific predictions that are borne out deserve more credit than people who make vague claims that can't be either affirmed or falsified.
And from there, why not keep track of how many times a commentator uses equivocating devices like "borders on", "all but certain", "just short of"?
And then, what about commentators who keep predicting a specific thing will happen but ascribing different causes to it?
You can also measure how "substantive" a commentator tends to be by looking at the frequency with which concrete facts or examples are cited to support their claim, vs. how many times vague subjective judgments are invoked, vs. how many times nothing is brought forward to support the claim at all.
You can measure how frequently a commentator tends to repeat the same news event or same analysis.
You can take transcripts of their shows and put them into a program that determines what reading level, (in terms of school grades like 7th grade, 9th grade...) their discussion was judged to be at.
And there are probably tons of others.
Granted, systems like this, if they caught on, could turn around and bite us like those stories about wish-granting genies with a sense of irony- surely this would result in a whole host of unanticipated structural biases generated by such stats that change the character and quality of the discussion; surely pundits would find, even discover, new ways to misinform and adapt to the structure accordingly.
But that has already happened. Pundits already speak in a language designed to make as many claims as possible without being on the hook in any way that risks their credibility. So while it would create new biases, I think it would overturn a whole bunch of pre-existing biases that I think are much worse (or at least shed light on them).
This is a long-winded way of saying I really want something like this to happen, and to work.
Re: Sources: Google In Talks To Acquire Twitter
#37Google is best poised to monetize twitter.. $250mn seems low though.
Re: Sources: Google In Talks To Acquire Twitter
#38Come on now, we all know TechCrunch is ridiculously pro-twitter. I doubt there's too much in this TBH.
Re: Sources: Google In Talks To Acquire Twitter
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
HubDub (a prediction market) has been doing this for nearly a year: http://punditwatch.hubdub.com/ TechCrunch's score is a telling 13%.
these scores are not comparable because they are missing a critical piece of the puzzle: the likelihoods of your predictions. I predict everyday for the rest of the year that the dow jones will be above 2 and below 4 million. The right measure is to take the difference between market and pundit opinion (you know like a real market, except unlike companies these always end at 1/0 on a certain date - like a covered opt…
This is definitely true. Plus, I think these are open to abuse. If the submissions are coming from a self-selected user base, surely its possible to self-servingly interpret certain statements as "predictions" that aren't, or a certain set of events as "proving" a prediction in one way or the other.
There is only so much fudging that can occur, of course. But this kind of on-the-margins behavior is a new challenge that this relatively new breed of sites will have to deal with.
Re: Sources: Google In Talks To Acquire Twitter
#40Not buying it. This is Google we are talking about, their main move has always been to release their own version of the service, hope to win, and only if that fails, do they open up their pocket book. But a broken clock is still right twice a day, so who knows, maybe Arrington's source isn't full of it
i would wager that google is not buying the service , rather the community. many twitter clones exist but the community is with the original - and that is what is valuable, the data they produce.