Should Microsoft Twitter This or Google That?

Twitter's value to Google is search. Value to Microsoft: keeping Google from getting Twitter. The rumors about Google-Twitter acquisition talks are almost certainly false or, at best, about early stages. But even the rumors should be enough for Microsoft to pay whatever it takes to keep Twitter from Google.

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Microsoft must learn lessons from YouTube, which the company could have purchased for $500 million about six months before Google paid $1.6 billion. Search is YouTube's value to Google. In February, Google's U.S. search share was 63.3 percent, according to ComScore. Microsoft: 8.2 percent. Internet users performed 13.1 billion searches in February, with 8.3 billion going to Google search. But when adding in massive YouTube search (and trickle from other Google sites), the number is 11.25 billion.

Twitter's growth is simply astounding, which gives it major appeal as an acquisition. According to Nielsen Online, February to February, unique Twitter visitors jumped 1,382 percent. Google can tap into Twitter's potential through search. Twitter recently added a search feature that is simply voyeuristic.

Silicon Alley Insider's Henry Blodget also says a Google-Twitter deal makes sense. He encourages Google to offer "$1 billion, cash" for Twitter. It's an outrageous sum for a company with big growth and no business model. Of course, the same could have been said about YouTube three years ago.

The question: What should Microsoft pay to keep Twitter from Google? A cool billion? I don't see Twitter as being a good acquisition for Microsoft, other than keeping it from Google. So $1 billion is steep.

Twitter Is Anti-social
Robert Scoble, who is convinced Google would screw up Twitter, blogs:

There's something even worse awaiting it: if Twitter gets purchased by Microsoft. Or worse, Adobe or Oracle or IBM. Why? These companies understand even less of what's going on in the social networking space than Google does. At least Google is trying and failing. But Google makes great mobile apps and Google understands how to scale things that need scale. I can also see how Google would integrate Twitter search into its search pages.

Google is trying and failing, Robert, because there is very little social about the company's technology. I'm no fan of Twitter, as a service. It encourages a culture of talking at people, whether or not they want to listen, rather than engaging them. It's the anti-social network. In a sense, Twitter would fit nicely into the Googlesphere of products. Google's core business is about math. There's nothing personal or socially interactive about the mechanics of search.

Robert doesn't think much of Twitter as a Microsoft product:

Microsoft, on the other hand, doesn't deserve to get Twitter. Microsoft has totally screwed up its online branding and search. It's pretty incompetent in those areas and has been for years. Yeah, I know that Microsoft has thousands of employees who'll call me names on their blogs and yeah I know that Microsoft has thousands of fans, er, MVPs, who'll tell you at length why I'm wrong.

Twitter this, Robert: Perhaps Microsoft would do everyone a huge favor by screwing up Twitter so badly that it goes away. I'm quite serious in calling it the anti-social network. Twitter is like a crowded room, where everyone gabs about themselves and there's so much raucous talk no one can really take in what anyone else is saying. Twitter is very impersonal. Twitterfights—cankerous arguments by 140-character tweets—show just how impersonal is the service. Twitterfights are very public, but often tweeters don't act like they are. That demonstrates just how impersonal, how really unsocial, Twitter is.

Search This, Google
Henry contends that "Twitter is a hell of a lot more relevant to Google's business than other big Google ideas," which I agree with. "Twitter is also about communications, which is the one part of the content-communications-and-commerce Internet tripod that Google is still weak in," Henry continues. He's right that Google is weak on this tripod, but wrong that Twitter is about communications. The service is about anything but communications—at least the interpersonal kind. Be honest. How many of your Twitter subscribers are people you know or have come to know through the service?

Twitter is about noise. People wanting to be heard, whether or not they have anything relevant to say. As for the business model, last week's ExecTweets portal with Microsoft is dumb and the Google AdSense deal for aggregating tweets is dumber.

Henry gives other reasons for Google to acquire Twitter, one of which should interest Microsoft. He writes:

Twitter could conceivably threaten Google's cash cow—search. This 'real-time search' meme is actually a compelling story-line. If you want to know what people are talking about right now, you go to Twitter, not Google. Twitter hasn't figured out how to make bank off that yet, but it may well do so. Remember how much ridicule was heaped on Google's worthless 'search engine' in the early days?

Right you are, Henry. In terms of search taxonomy, Twitter is similar to YouTube. Both services are about self-aggrandizing, whether with mundane tweets or video diaries. Both services are about me—no, I. I am this, or I am that. Please care about me. But there's something else: Twitter is already moving down a similar path as YouTube: commercialism. YouTube is more than a service for self-broadcasting. Much of the content was professionally produced, regardless of who posted it. Businesses have YouTube channels, too, where they post videos about their products or brands. Microsoft has many. Twitter already is filling up with celebrities and marketers.

Making Money from Mountains
Twitter is rapidly moving in the direction of commercial/marketing communications. It's there that Henry is right about what Twitter could do for Google or how the service could hurt the search giant. For starters, why search when you can feed? When you search, what will you look for? Specific content or people, just like on YouTube. Around feeds or search, the marketing potential is simply staggering.

Hypothetical: Suppose Mountain Dew (should I use Mtn Dew, now?) sponsors a Winter Olympics 2010 Twitter feed. Perhaps for the U.S. ski team or one skier. Followers are sure to come. Celebrity is a pheromone. The skier(s) can tweet about the preparations, the tension, the excitement of winning or the disappointment of losing. People will follow the feed(s). Every so often, Mtn Dew inserts an advertisement into the feed(s) or offers promo codes for free Olympic logo gear to the first 20 retweeters.

People are interested in people, which is Twitter's allure. Personality, celebrity or branded celebrity feeds will bring followers. The service's impersonal character makes it better suited, in the long term, to commercial and celebrity feeds. I present one example, but I easily could write about a dozen more. There are many ways Twitter could profit from commercialized feeds.

Meanwhile, with growth, Twitter would bleed search traffic from Google. Would Twitter undermine Google's core search business? Of course not. Google search is better off with YouTube, but not necessarily harmed without it. Likewise Twitter. But as part of Google, Twitter could open up more search traffic and more ways of generating online advertising revenue.

I want to believe that Microsoft could similarly tap Twitter. But I agree with Robert. Besides, I stopped believing in the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus long ago. And Twitter marketing doesn't fit Microsoft's business model. So what should Microsoft do about Twitter?

There is an option other than acquisition, and one that could benefit Microsoft while hurting Google. Microsoft could invest in Twitter, like it did with Facebook, to make the startup a more costly, and so less desirable, acquisition. Through the investment, Microsoft could give Twitter time to grow, to expand search and to tap advertising possibilities. Twitter as a Google competitor could be good for Microsoft, which would be the better long-term technology partner for Twitter than Google. Microsoft and Twitter have fewer competing business interests than will Google and Twitter in 12 to 24 months.

You can tweet that.

[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at gmail.com.]