And folks keep speculating that Google will buy Twitter (Facebook tried, didn’t work out). I think Yahoo might see Twitter as a way to get back to the days of Flickr …making smart moves that help the company keep its mojo and grow data and community rich services. Not sure how folks at Twitter feel about that. I do know Yahoo has cash, which is better than Facebook stock right about now (see this story as to why).
Yahoo Joins Twitter
And folks keep speculating that Google will buy Twitter (Facebook tried, didn't work out). I think Yahoo might see Twitter as a way to get back to the days of Flickr …making smart moves that help the company keep its mojo and grow data and community rich services. Not…
If Google would buy Twitter it would certainly take the revenue producing pressure off the service.
Now that many are using it as an integral part of their business life it would be great to feel that it was ‘stabilized’ by Google’s strength.
I am happy to see my favorite email service, Yahoo! joining in the near real time party hosted by my favorite microblog, Twitter. Along with the $35 million new vc investment in Twitter announced today, Twitter’s future is looking blindingly bright.
Prediction: A Twitter IPO – as soon as the 3rd quarter – even without sustained revenue streams or profitablity. The forecast of a Twitter IPO will re-open the currently locked, and crucial exit door which venture capitalists need to have unlocked in order to inspire their confidence in the future.
Thanks for the shout out on Yahoo!’s Twitter account.
Such a trip!
I love Twitter… but very interesting how different people use it.
For me it’s like this artistic challenge…
Trying to come up with concise little concepts in 140 characters…
More for fun and usually once a day or so.
But I have another friend, technically sophisticated and full geek who has no interest in it at all and doesn’t see any future in it.
Personally I do think it has a long future… if for no other reason than that its a very clean function and has established enough penetration that overcoming “Internet Inertia” would be difficult for a competitor.
The limits of its revenue potentials seem less clear though should ultimately be a stable stream whatever it ends up being…
Which is nothing to laugh at these days.
As for Yahoo’s twitters!
Well I’ll follow ’em and we’ll see how it goes…
I love Yahoo and I love Twitter but I really don’t want to have to sign in to Twitter with a Yahoo ID. ;-p
Mr.Battelle, i do agree with you that Yahoo has got the cash to buy out twitter if they want to. I think they should go for it cause google really need to be marked neck to neck.
Thanks for looking at my article. My view is Google has the money not to monetize and could easily just add a tab at the top for search… I constantly go to search to find an answer or link for people I am twitting with…. that page could have ads etc.
It’s interesting to see the discrepancy between the 17 Yahoo! twitter accounts that already existed, opened by the individual business units. Some (yahoo_directory, yahoomovies, yahoogames) seem to follow those who follow them, creating a two-way conversation, whereas others (Delicious, YahooGeo, ydn) are very much one way.
An interesting thought, would benefit Yahoo perhaps, but I’d be fearful of the move. Flickr has hardly changed, improved or innovated since its acquisition by Yahoo, a promising startup and innovative social photo community and site on the web gobbled up and languishing ever since. The curse of innovative companies being bought up by larger slower moving ones? I hope Yahoo doesn’t buy Twitter, or rather that Twitter doesn’t sell to Yahoo…
I like what Yahoo! is doing and learning about social media and how to interact with their fans. I wonder if this had to get approved or someone just went ahead and did it.
This is an interesting posibility. In an increasingly mono-cultural (i.e. Google-dominated) world there are a few services – Flickr, delicious among them – which retain their island-like status. Adding another strong island like Twitter could be a shrewd move – if only Yahoo! could develop a strategy around these pockets of excellence. A true challenge, I think.
I only wish HH and the followers would find a safer place. It irks me how nations in power insist on denying a people freedom to choose their own path.
It reminds me of a bitter mother refusing to let her children play because she’s afraid she won’t be needed anymore.
On the flipside, it also tires me that Buddhism believes that aversion to the pleasure/pain cycle is the way to happiness. I have always believed it is merely the recognition of both as beautiful.
What I want is the ability to seamlessly notify my Twiciples each time I conduct a search on Google (or Amazon, or eBay or Craigslist). So that any of my Twiciples who has knowledge on that subject can help me out. Of course I’d want the option to disable this feature for specific queries… like when i’m searching for a gift for my boss or something 😉
For instance I just searched Google for “iphone video recorder app” and then I subsequently updated my Facebook status with “Do any of you people know where I can get my hands on a reliable video recorder app for my iPhone?”
So, there’s yer million dollar idea.. make it happen, someone.
tx
m