
Google buying Twitter predicted to follow Microsoft’s move for LinkedIn - obi1kenobi
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/google-buying-twitter-predicted-to-follow-microsofts-move-for-linkedin-2016-06-14
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Olscore
If this were to actually happen I would consider it bad news for independent
journalism and dangerous for some political viewpoints, even in the United
States. Google already owns one of the largest social media platforms:
YouTube. Both Twitter and YouTube have pretty large political significance and
being owned by the same company could be an issue. Especially as we have seen
some persons lose their verification badges (on both YouTube and Twitter) for
allegedly being on the wrong side of the political spectrum. The idea of this
makes me uneasy.

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deciplex
I agree with you in principle however as far as I can tell people are being
banned for what is essentially hate speech, i.e. speech that incites to
violence. That is not the same as banning for political views - Google and
Twitter are under no obligation, not even an ethical obligation, to allow that
stuff on their sites.

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kanwisher
Hate speech can be very subjective. Like disagreeing with a common view point.
If one company can control what is politically correct. There will be less
freedom

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deciplex
Mere "political incorrectness" does not rise to anywhere near the level of
actual hate speech. It's the difference between advocating against abortion or
even protesting abortion clinics, and actually calling for the assassination
of abortion doctors.

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niftich
If Google were to buy Twitter, they wouldn't do it because they want Twitter's
content or community, they'd do it to merge Twitter's single-digit display ad
share with theirs and defensively eliminate a future competitor. I feel they
have no more interest in Twitter than does Facebook.

Twitter acquired Crashlytics, and they released Fabric.io as a "Twitter
Inside" SDK to entice app developers to Twitter integration and its MoPub ad
network. This is their big push to beat out Facebook and live inside every
app, but Google already plays this game, and Twitter isn't yet a huge threat
to them. Either Google or Facebook could buy them defensively, but they need
not at this time. (I feel that Microsoft's purchase of LinkedIn was also
defensive, but that's a different story.)

Verizon, on the other hand, could buy Twitter. They bought AOL to enter the
content creation market, and they could cement their share. Or more likely,
they could instead buy Yahoo, and with it Tumblr, on the cheap.

Amazon could buy Twitter. They bought Twitch, and they could use Twitter to
expand their social presence, logged-in time, and display ad share.

Yandex could buy Twitter. They would break into the US and Japanese market in
a huge way. The Fabric.io SDK would be a perfect fit to drive more engagement
from apps to their properties.

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sidcool
This is something I believe Google should have done way before. They need an
external hand to make a footprint in social media and Twitter might be the
perfect bet.

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romanovcode
I don't think it would be possible before since Twitter thought that it will
be super-profitable.

Only now they realised that they have no real model for making actual money.
It's the perfect time to buy.

