The Apple rumour mill was hot again this morning as word spread the ‘blogosphere’ and the ‘Twitterati’ that Apple had lodged a $700m bid to acquire Twitter.
Twitter, the media ‘darling’ of the digital world has rejected previous bids, most notably a $500m bid from Facebook last year, and another tickle from Google .
Few people are actually expecting a deal to go through however. Twitter is in a pretty strong position right now with traffic going through the roof globally, with thanks to Oprah and gang (although I recognize that it could peak), and the reasons for Apple to buy aren’t blindingly obvious (as opposed to say, a Facebook or a Google).
It might be that they want to beef up their web development expertise, in much the same way they have mobile but that’s not particularly convincing. Maybe they want to get even cooler? (is that possible?) Who knows.
The clearest reason why this won’t happen is that Apple are always involved in some of the most ridiculous buy out rumours. In the last few years Apple have been “at advanced stages” with no other than: Adobe, EA, Disney, Nintendo and now Twitter.
This one will pass like the rest of them I’m sure. Twaddle.
Nic
The bottom line with this is that Steve Jobs isn't stupid. Twitter currently has a 50% per month user drop out rate (or churn)and that figure rises to 60% in the US.
ReplyDeleteSee...
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/twitter-quitters-post-roadblock-to-long-term-growth/
The high churn rate may be due to the sheer banality of Twitter's core premise but a more interesting theory is Seth Godin's idea of media friction - the easier a media is to use the easier it is to stop using it.
See...
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/05/friction-saves-the-medium.html
Jobs is the guy who brought you Pixar, the iPod and re-wrote the book on mobile comms with the iphone so does anyone seriously believe he's going drop $700m on a company that appears to have very little idea of how it's going to monetise itself and is rapidly running out of new users?
It's a brave agency that fronts a client with a prop for a media that suffers a 50% churn rate and boasts Demi Moore's husband as its poster-boy.
Great post Steve, thanks for the links. Agree - it's nonsense.
ReplyDeleteThe no profit in Twitter might not go down too well in the halls at Apple.
Cheers
Nic