
  When Twitter Met Facebook: The Acquisition Deal That Fail-Whaled - nickb
http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081124/when-twitter-met-facebook-the-acquisition-deal-that-fail-whaled/
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mdasen
The big question that should always lurk in people's minds when considering a
stock transaction: if they're saying that this stock is worth $500M and I
don't want it in stock, why can't they sell it to someone else and give me the
cash from that sale?

If it is worth $500M, they can sell that stock to a VC or other investor for
that price. It probably isn't worth that much which explains why FB didn't
want to go that route.

EDIT: note, this isn't meant as being harsh on stock transactions. Often
times, you want to offer stock so that the people gaining the stock stay with
you and have an investment in the acquiring company doing well with what
they've bought. In publicly traded companies, you wouldn't want to flood the
market with a huge number of common shares since that would depress the price.
However, in this case, that doesn't seem to apply.

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snorkel
Twitter was wise to walk away. Getting paid in inflated private Facebook stock
is the same as not getting paid.

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jonknee
We'll find out later if they were wise. If it can't be monetized they will get
$0. That could very well be the same for Facebook though, it will be
interesting to see how it works out.

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kirse
Twitter has plenty of room to continue growing, this is only the first of many
offers they'll receive.

Honestly, that deal is almost as bad as me starting some BS company, getting
it valued at several billion by a few generous accountants, and then trying to
"buy" a few companies with my inflated value.

Basically there's really nothing of solid value in Facebook right now
(especially given this economic situation), other than their hard assets in
servers.

Until Zuckerberg comes up with a business plan and turns a profit, I'm
sticking to Facebook existing as just another social networking bubble.

~~~
jonknee
I agree, but there's also nothing of solid value for Twitter. They don't even
have the servers. It's two absurd unproven valuations talking to each other.
Comedy gold!

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KevinBongart
Facebook is a social applications host, Google is a webservices suite,
Microsoft makes OS and software... Twitter is a great service because it's
independent. It's a community that loves the only service provided : it's
Facebook's "is" and nothing more.

This status can be updated with anything, broadcasted on everything, read by
everything... It's a service that doesn't need a ton of other services to
work. Without last saturday night pictures, without suggested friends, without
planned events, Twitter is still Twitter, while Facebook's "is" would be just
Twitter. Buying Twitter, Facebook would create a conflict between the two
status services and would merge them, Twitter's "@" messages would
disappear...

For a independent Twitter, put your hand up in the air o/

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paul9290
Google should buy Twitter and integrate it into Gmail ...two tabs one email
tab and one Twitter tab.

Not sure about others but this would great for me, as I spend a lot of time in
Gmail and refresh Twitter many times a day.

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andr
Google has the know how (XMPP), the significant user base (every Gmail user),
and the relationship (who talks to who) information to do this themselves.
Heck, they just need to start logging GTalk status messages.

~~~
paul9290
Well they already own a Twitter clone Jaiku and are doing nothing with it.

With Twitter they'd be buying the users and the brand. Google is a better fit
then Facebook, IMHO!

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josefresco
Jaiku is a good example of why we should all hope Google does not buy Twitter.

The 'assimilation' time into the Google borg would kill the service (or give
Arrington a years worth of bitching material)

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nir
An image is worth a thousand words, as they say:
<http://flickr.com/photos/charliereece/777487250/>

