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Facebook Tries to Buy Twitter, Thinks Status Updates are Very Important
November 24th, 2008
| By Justin Smith | 15 Comments » |
Facebook recently initiated acquisition talks with Twitter for $500 million in Facebook stock, but those talks fell apart as recently as three weeks ago, Kara Swisher reports.
Execs at Facebook, who have long been impressed with Twitter, were trying to make the purchase at Facebook’s $15 billion stock valuation. At the end of the day, Twitter investors were concerned about the valuation of Facebook’s stock, and weren’t ready to sell out to the first suitor when they believe Twitter has the potential to ride out the economic downturn.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently expressed his high view of Twitter when he said at the Web 2.0 conference that he was “really impressed by what they’ve done” and that Twitter has a “very elegant model.”
In separate interviews, Zuckerberg has commented publicly on how important he believes the “status update” feature is to the future of information sharing on Facebook. Instead of writing a few long blog posts, most people like posting many short status updates, broadcasting everything from their activity to their emotions, he has said several times.
When the Facebook redesign launched a couple months ago, the status update publisher was promoted to the top of the News Feed (home page), reflecting how important what some have called “micro-blogging” is in Facebook’s and Zuckerberg’s eyes.
For its part, Twitter continues to grow while continuing to invest in resolving the technical issues that plagued it earlier this year. Twitter has become an interesting communication platform in its own right, so it would not be surprising to see additional acquirers emerge for whom owning a communication utility might be strategic…
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November 24th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Thanks for the great article. I enjoyed it!
November 24th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
[...] Facebook tries to buy Twitter [...]
November 25th, 2008 at 1:54 am
great, they are right. The acquisition will be fruitful.
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:56 am
Great article. I think Facebook’s interest in Twitter vindicates it as a necessary component to interpersonal communication, and points to the relationship development opportunities available through the social media channel. While Twitter is still an asynchronous medium, I think it mimics interpersonal communication more than any other computer mediated communication technology platform to date. I believe that is part of the appeal and success Twitter is facing. The ability for near-instantaneous responses aids in relational development thereby granting social value to the medium. While there is merit to developing relationships via Twitter, I hope that Twitter can maintain its integrity as a social medium and not morph solely into an advertising/promotional platform.
In order for the business end of such relationship as proposed by Facebook to be profitable, there must be a social utility factor that is preserved for the end users. Conversations are two-sided in social media; traditional marketing tactics of feeding information instead of listening to what is being said, will have the adverse effect on the social media communicator. Information must be made available in such a way as to be informative and not overbearing. In this way, both the marketer and the consumer can discuss what the true brand identity is. Social media sites like Facebook have done a relatively good job at maintaining a balance between social utility and marketing and a marriage of sorts between Twitter and Facebook could prove successful.
I believe at some point all computer mediated communication platforms will morph together and there will be a flow to it which will be beneficial for social media sites like Facebook, lucrative for innovative sites like Twitter, and useful to consumers who use these sites as a means of communicating.
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:06 pm
[...] weeks ago, details emerged about Facebook’s failed attempts over recent weeks to acquire communication service Twitter. [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
[...] heard couple of week’s ago, some news that Facebook would be buying out Twitter, but we never heard public comments from Twitter’s [...]
December 13th, 2008 at 4:23 am
[...] like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google in Gtalk are offering it as a feature. In fact Facebook even offered to buy out Twitter for that [...]
March 2nd, 2009 at 3:08 am
[...] months ago, reports surfaced that Facebook and Twitter were in discussions for a $500 million takeover, but couldn’t get a deal done. Today, early Facebook investor and board member Peter Thiel of [...]
March 4th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
[...] something new for its users. The move on a twitter like feed has been expected as Facebook tried to buy Twitter a while [...]
March 8th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
[...] and Twitter may have held unsuccessful acquisition talks a few months ago, but that hasn’t stopped Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg from using Twitter [...]
May 5th, 2009 at 9:07 am
[...] which has gained increasing popularity among celebrities. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder has expressed his feeling that status updates are going to be very important in the future of community [...]
June 15th, 2009 at 11:00 am
[...] since Twitter gained strong media coverage after a few months of solid growth. Having previously tried to buy Twitter, the suspicion has been that Facebook is adopting many of the features of the microblogging [...]
July 24th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
[...] like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google in Gtalk are offering it as a feature. In fact Facebook even offered to buy out Twitter for that [...]
August 10th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
[...] year, Facebook was in heavy discussions to acquire Twitter, but those talks fell through. Now, it will be the FriendFeed shareholders that will be exchanging [...]
September 14th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
[...] nothing left. Make no mistake about it, these social networks are fierce competitors. Remember that Facebook attempted to acquire Twitter back in 2008, believing that status updates were vital to the future of information sharing. Twitter spurned [...]