Wow…quite a story from Kara Swisher today that Facebook was interested in buying Twitter for $500m. Okay, I love Twitter as much as anyone but $500m is a big chunk of cash for something that isn’t making money at the moment. That’s not to say that it couldn’t and I think the only way Twitter is going is up but in the current climate, that’s a big wedge.
Personally I think Twitter is right to hold out but hope it’s all a big game of Russian roulette.
I think the argument was more about whether $500m of Facebook stock was *really* worth $500m - they weren't necessarily saying that Twitter was worth more than $500m if that were in cash.
Well, that kind of figure can only come as a response to a privately shared business model — so the good news is that Twitter as a business model that is so good is actually can be shown to Facebook and aparently prints cash. Let's hope it is not too cluttering.
My real problem is that all the business model ideas I've seen or had on either (paying groups, embeded commercial recommendations) make sense for both, so Twitter might not have given the idea to a potential competitor (on advertizers side, e.g.) so easily. Ergo: Facebook has a business model that works for Twitter, i.e. not banners. Whatever happens, users win.