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I will eat my shoe if Apple buys Twitter. Edit: In light of this post (http://dcurt.is/100-billion-units-of-strategy http://dcurt.is/100-billion-units-of-strat

by phil 15y ago

I will eat my shoe if Apple buys Twitter. Edit: In light of this post (http://dcurt.is/100-billion-units-of-strategy http://dcurt.is/100-billion-units-of-strategy) I'll add that I will also eat my shoe if Apple buys Netflix.

mburns 15y ago
Twitter wouldn't even put a significant dent into the nearly $100B in cash they have. They'd still have ~$90 billion left over after buying out Twitter.
- AznHisoka 15y ago
  Then buy Facebook.
  - phil 15y ago
    That's more than they can afford, at least without substantial equity in the deal.
- ma2rten 15y ago
  In theory they try to buy the big blue book of faces. Not sure the merger would be approved, though. Also it would be a waste of money, just like buying Twitter.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  10% isn't a significant dent?
SandB0x 15y ago
Apple sell products and they sell content. I couldn't imagine them running a free service.
- 2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
  iCloud.
  - meepmorp 15y ago
    You buy iCloud, just as part of the purchase price of Apple hardware/software.
  - elithrar 15y ago
    > iCloud. ICloud sells devices—it's a tech spec, in a way. It's beneficial to nearly all of their users (invisible backups, Find My iPhone/iPad/Mac, etc). Twitter, not so much.
- phil 15y ago
  And they suck at advertising, and they suck at web services. Why go in deeper? The thing Twitter has that could be of value is a big library of users with accounts, but Apple already has that. iTunes accounts are (I think) roughly the same size as Twitter, plus all accounts have some payment mechanism on file.
barrynolan 15y ago
Now that Oink is gone...
rdl 15y ago
Dropbox is the only "big" tech company Apple should buy, and they had their shot. I don't even understand the Twitter integration into Apple's products. It seems like it's defensive, just to protect from Google+ being well integrated into Android and thus somehow making Google+ plus Android more successful than iOS (3 jokes there!), or Facebook doing some deal with Microsoft or building their own phone of some sort and leading to the same. iMessage/iCloud seems like it could easily grow into something just as useful for Apple as any Twitter integration. Twitter the company (except for Jack Dorsey) would also be culturally incompatible with Apple. I could maybe see Square working out as part of Apple, though. Actually, buying Flickr from Yahoo and turning it (plus iPhoto, Camera Roll, etc.) into a photo sharing competitor to Facebook, and growing social networking features from 1) strong photo sharing 2) real identity 3) iTunes/iCloud accounts 4) iMessage IM/group IM, would probably be the way for Apple to have a social alternative to Facebook or Google+, if that ever really were an Apple objective. But, as you've said, Apple is horrible at online services (iCloud is barely ok, and only because most functionality is hidden infrastructure -- MobileMe was horrible) and at advertising and really at everything except making devices and operating systems/apps for those devices, so this would be a bad path for them.

by phil 15y ago

mburns 15y ago

Twitter wouldn't even put a significant dent into the nearly $100B in cash they have. They'd still have ~$90 billion left over after buying out Twitter.

AznHisoka 15y ago
Then buy Facebook.
- phil 15y ago
  That's more than they can afford, at least without substantial equity in the deal.
ma2rten 15y ago
In theory they try to buy the big blue book of faces. Not sure the merger would be approved, though. Also it would be a waste of money, just like buying Twitter.
sliverstorm 15y ago
10% isn't a significant dent?

SandB0x 15y ago

Apple sell products and they sell content. I couldn't imagine them running a free service.

2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
iCloud.
- meepmorp 15y ago
  You buy iCloud, just as part of the purchase price of Apple hardware/software.
- elithrar 15y ago
  > iCloud. ICloud sells devices—it's a tech spec, in a way. It's beneficial to nearly all of their users (invisible backups, Find My iPhone/iPad/Mac, etc). Twitter, not so much.
phil 15y ago
And they suck at advertising, and they suck at web services. Why go in deeper? The thing Twitter has that could be of value is a big library of users with accounts, but Apple already has that. iTunes accounts are (I think) roughly the same size as Twitter, plus all accounts have some payment mechanism on file.

barrynolan 15y ago

Now that Oink is gone...

rdl 15y ago

Dropbox is the only "big" tech company Apple should buy, and they had their shot. I don't even understand the Twitter integration into Apple's products. It seems like it's defensive, just to protect from Google+ being well integrated into Android and thus somehow making Google+ plus Android more successful than iOS (3 jokes there!), or Facebook doing some deal with Microsoft or building their own phone of some sort and leading to the same. iMessage/iCloud seems like it could easily grow into something just as useful for Apple as any Twitter integration. Twitter the company (except for Jack Dorsey) would also be culturally incompatible with Apple. I could maybe see Square working out as part of Apple, though. Actually, buying Flickr from Yahoo and turning it (plus iPhoto, Camera Roll, etc.) into a photo sharing competitor to Facebook, and growing social networking features from 1) strong photo sharing 2) real identity 3) iTunes/iCloud accounts 4) iMessage IM/group IM, would probably be the way for Apple to have a social alternative to Facebook or Google+, if that ever really were an Apple objective. But, as you've said, Apple is horrible at online services (iCloud is barely ok, and only because most functionality is hidden infrastructure -- MobileMe was horrible) and at advertising and really at everything except making devices and operating systems/apps for those devices, so this would be a bad path for them.