
Google Should Buy Twitter Before The IPO - ssclafani
http://uncrunched.com/2013/10/24/google-should-buy-twitter-before-the-ipo/
======
adamnemecek
I don't get these sorts of articles. The author did not present any sort of
argument beyond the implied "because it would be cool". Does he actually think
that at no point has it occurred to anyone at Google to buy Twitter? What
exactly is he expecting to accomplish with this article? Does he think that
after reading this article, some Google fat cats will change their minds?

I should start my own blog. First article will be "Google should buy Uber so
that once they roll out driverless cars they already have a customer base".

~~~
Shank
[Do you not know who Michael Arrington is?]

The argument is that Google+ is unsuccessful, and Twitter is, on the other
hand. Twitter is booming with growth and is a prime target for Google if their
goal is really to own a social network with a high amount of usage and and
public knowledge. Google+ is not.

Arrington presents that it would be akin to Google purchasing YouTube even
when it had Google Video gaining moderate traction over a slower period of
time. Twitter is to YouTube as Google+ is to Google Video.

~~~
kwestro
Twitter has NEVER made a profit. They can barely monetize their products.

~~~
OvidNaso
Which makes his youtube analogy more apropos.

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skystorm
Oh boy. "No one I know uses Google+ much, if at all." I'm getting sooo sick of
this argument. Noone I know uses Twitter, but a lot of friends are active on
Google+, sharing things in private. Yet I don't call Twitter a failure. It's
just different groups of people that use either service, and just because you
have more connections to one "side" doesn't mean the other doesn't exist...

~~~
ivanbrussik
These claims that people make about Google+ are ridiculous. Sure, if you count
account sign-ups then they are probably #1 but active users...no way.

"Google+’s user numbers are juiced simply because Google forces the product on
everyone, and if you use Google to authenticate yourself to third parties, you
are using Google+"

I feel the same way, I know a lot of people _online_ that use Google+, but
zero of my IRL friends use Google+ (most use FB, Instagram and Twitter).

~~~
bad_user
You're confusing the cause and the effect. Google± is not being juiced up with
integrations to make G+ popular, but rather those integrations are the reason
for why G+ was created in the first place.

Google simply wanted a universal Google account for YouTube, Google Play,
Blogger and so on. As to for why the wanted that? Well, Facebook is proving
that there is value in collecting people's likes and comments, and then using
those for serving ads.

On the active G+ users remark, I disagree. Every YouTube user is now a G+
user. Every GPlay user that wants to write reviews is now a G+ user.

So the point that their growth is not organic is rather moot.

~~~
dingaling
> Every YouTube user is now a G+ user.

This statement surprises me. Casual video-viewing is a large proportion of
YouTube's attraction and does not require authentication ( except for age-
restricted content ).

I don't have any Google accounts and I don't have any problems viewing YouTube
content.

Every Youtube _uploader_ might be a G+ user, but what proportion of the
audience is that? 10% at most?

~~~
bad_user
I go to YouTube all the time to listen to music. Organizing playlists on
YouTube requires an account (playlists which are public by default, something
that really annoys me). Liking a video on YouTube requires an account. You
really underestimate the number of active YouTube accounts. And even if 10% is
a good estimate, given that YouTube is the de facto destination for videos,
10% is huge.

And btw, Facebook is a competitor because a great deal of YouTube traffic
comes from Facebook and so many people end up liking or commenting around
YouTube links on Facebook. And that's what Google is trying to prevent with
Google+: lost traffic, lost opportunities.

Note, I'm not saying that what Google is doing is good for us. After all, the
Internet's strength is in its decentralized aspect. All I'm saying is that,
from Google's point of view, Google+ already is a success. People miss the
point when they view Google+ as a failure. Larry Page once said that Google+
is now the new Google. And he wasn't joking about it.

People laughed at Android when it came out. Nobody's laughing now. I fear a
Google dominated near future, which is why in the Google versus Facebook
battle I actually hope Facebook wins, but I admire Google's execution.

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objclxt
...because Google buying a loss making company for $12 billion+ on the basis
of some notional 'value' to the business has worked out fantastically well for
them in the past (replace 'Twitter' with 'Motorola', and replace 'data' with
'patents')...

~~~
lubos
They bought YouTube when it was basically a financial and legal trainwreck...

~~~
johnchristopher
Weren't there mails exchanged between Youtube founders at the time that were
going like "let us ignore those legal worries until someone big buy us, then
we tell them" ? So Google didn't really get the full problem until it got its
hands on it (hard to believe, maybe they bought Youtube despite that ? Can't
remember).

~~~
raverbashing
I think the legal problems of YT were pretty clear even if you were outside of
it.

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MildlySerious
Amongst the big players, Twitter is the one who cares the most about Open
Source and transparency. I wouldn't want to see them being swallowed by
Google, or anyone else for that matter.

~~~
asadlionpk
is mozilla a big player?

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neovi
I don't understand why he cites Google's market cap since that doesn't really
support the purchase cost as "pocket change."

Google has a free cash flow of ~$2.8 billion [1], so no, it wouldn't be pocket
change.

Twitter's data worth tens of billions? Well, CNBC is saying they've sold their
data for +$47 million [2] but I don't find any clear indication of that on the
SEC filing [3]. A part of me doesn't believe that data would be worth billions
to Google's search team seeing that they made ~$13.8 billion just on their own
data.

Personally speaking (as in I have no data supporting the practicality of these
thoughts), where Google could profit in buying Twitter is in using tweets for
machine learning conversations, connecting geography with social interests &
economic impact (Japan loves anime, US loves football, etc), and asset
acquisition.

[1] Pg.8 -
[http://investor.google.com/pdf/2013Q3_google_earnings_slides...](http://investor.google.com/pdf/2013Q3_google_earnings_slides.pdf)

[2] [http://www.cnbc.com/id/101103596](http://www.cnbc.com/id/101103596)

[3]
[http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/0001193125133...](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513390321/d564001ds1.htm#toc564001_12)

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r0h1n
It is both a measure of Internet companies strength & weakness that multi-
billion dollar acquisitions are taken so lightly. _" Spent 3-4 years building
a product which didn't become a winner? No problem, buy someone else!"_

"Strength" because compared to other industries, integrating two Internet
companies is not that tough. Strength also because of the speed at which
startups build scale and become world dominating. And the sheer amount of
finance at their disposal to make these acquisitions.

"Weakness" because all of it seems so ephemeral. All it takes is a few years
and a leader is often a laggard. Conversely, if you don't sell out before your
bubble pops, you're history. And of course there's the network effects curse -
if you're not among the top few players, you might as well sell out or close
down.

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officialjunk
> I might be wrong...

Key phrase in the article.

~~~
sdoering
Problem is, whatever I read from Arrington, does not make me feel, that he
really believes, he could be wrong.

And that is my problem with most so called tech-journalists (or celebrities).
They oftentimes seem to make a great show of learning. At least, this is what
it seems to me.

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tomphoolery
Lest we forget that Twitter has DENIED Google's advances, on multiple
occasions, for a purchase.

Twitter would have been sold a long time ago if Google _really_ wanted to pay
what it was worth.

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integricho
I think noone should buy twitter,certainly not big corporations like
google.they got already too much power.

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staunch
It's all about price. At $11 billion, maybe. Double or triple that, probably
not a good deal.

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wellboy
What about Amazon instead of Google.

~~~
beambot
I kinda understand Google (search, advertising, social)... but how could
Twitter possibly integrate w/ Amazon?

~~~
shrikant
"People who tweeted this also bought..."?

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kishor_gurtu
Apple should buy Twitter just to delete Arrington's account.

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alan_cx
At what point do monopolies become a worry? Or do they at all?

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itsbits
yea let them also control USA

