What's Up with These Google-Twitter Rumors?

Last night, TechCrunch reported that Google and Twitter were in late-stage acquisition talks, which must be false simply because the so-called negotiations leaked. Acquisition talks never leak unless somebody has another agenda. Possibly, the talks aren't going anywhere, or there's another potential bidder. The IBM-Sun merger rumors are good example. If the talks had been going well, there wouldn't have been leaks about them. Newest rumors have IBM lowering its bid, which makes sense out of the leaks. Pressure.

GOT A TIP OR RUMOR?

Many other times, these kinds of discussions are something else, and not a merger, which appears to be the case here. All Things Digital's Kara Swisher has a near 100-percent accuracy rate (it might be a perfect a score) on acquisition rumors like this one. This morning she writes that while an acquisition "certainly sounds exciting, it isn't accurate in any way," according to her reliable sources. She continues:

In fact, Twitter and Google have simply been engaged in 'some product-related discussions,' according to one source, around real-time search and the search giant better crawling the microblogging service.

TechCrunch has a track record of getting stories first rather than always right, which is good for the site's traffic. If the future of journalism, as traditional news media declines, is first rather than right, blogs are no future at all. Michael Arrington has twice updated the post, one qualifying that talks are "still fairly early stage." But that's a little late for accuracy and doesn't take away the traffic boost.

Much has changed when I worked as a front-line tech journalist. Many blogs and news sites live and die by traffic. Being first pays bigger dividends than risks to the operation's reputation. There are lots of investors and other business types whose whole lives revolve around rumors. To them, first is better. That's good for blogs feeding rumors.

So far, on both Apple Watch and Microsoft Watch, I've resisted the temptation to let rumors run amok. In fact, I write very few rumor stories or comment on those of others. I'd rather be right than first, which isn't the easiest approach given the high value of traffic. True, I sometimes make mistakes, but they're just that. Mistakes. I don't take a juicy tip, perhaps with a single source, and run it as big news. I always assume tipsters have some other motivation. The questions to ask: Why did they give this information? Who benefits from it? What's the point of this whole matter?

So what's really going on between Google and Twitter? According to an Advertising Age story posted yesterday, same day as TechCrunch's rumor post:

The search giant has started offering marketers ad units that stream their five most recent 'tweets' across the Google AdSense network. The first marketer to use the ad units is Intuit, whose TurboTax brand is trying to boost its Twitter followers.

What about those Google-Twitter acquisition talks? Twitter co-founder Biz Stone blogged non-denial post, "Sometime We Talk." He writes: "It should come as no surprise that Twitter engages in discussions with other companies regularly and on a variety of subjects." Whether the acquisition rumors are true and leaked or whether Michael Arrington was wrong, Biz could easily have written, "Sometimes we talk too much."

That Michael changed from "late stage" to "fairly early stage" says enough about the state of negotiations, if there are any, or if there are none as Kara claims.

Kara and the All Things Digital team have a proven track record for getting things right, often debunking rumors when writing about them. Theirs is the example that bloggers and journalists should widely emulate. They must understand the huge impact of what they write.

Personal example: When I worked at CNET News.com, Dell leaked exclusively to me news about a deal for Wi-Fi cards with its laptops. Apple had just gotten to market first with Wi-Fi, and Dell looked for some catch-up publicity. The Wi-Fi deal was a scoop, verified, and I wrote the story. But what I didn't know, because I hadn't bothered to check: The small firm supplying the Wi-Fi cards to Dell went public a few weeks earlier. The day my story posted, the company's stock rose 40 percent. I found out from a reader, who e-mailed desperate to check the story's accuracy. He had shorted the small company's stock days before my story published. That experience, and many others where stories moved Microsoft stock up or down, taught me firsthand to be extra cautious when reporting anything about public companies. True stories have consequences. How much more rumors?

Editorial independence is essential, too, to remove any conflict of interest. For example, it's bad form for people who write about companies to also invest in them. For the record, Microsoft Watch is editorially independent. I make the point only because of several comments from somebody using handle "koppypoppy." Besides calling me a "retarded f**king f*ck" in one comment (I don't censor comments here, and I would ask my editors not to zap that one after reading about it here), he wrote: "Joe, you are a retarded idiot. Win Mobile is toast and so is your paymaster Microsoft. You can either get some skills or get lost you fool." My paymaster isn't Microsoft. I don't work for Microsoft, I write news analysis and commentary about Microsoft.

Circling back, there's any irony about today's Twitter take-over rumors. Twittering is sometimes ill-formed gossiping. I predict: Twitter will make, propagate and remake many urban legends during its existence. Twitter and rumors share an inevitable destiny. Also, twitter is the very abomination of getting it first before checking that it's right. "Pssst. Did you hear?"

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