Facebook, Google Size up Takeover of Twitter: Report

Google and Facebook, plus others, have held low level takeover talks with Twitter that give the Internet sensation a value as high as $10 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported.


In December, Twitter raised $200 million in financing in a deal that valued it at $3.7 billion. The company, which allows users to broadcast 140-character messages to groups of followers, had 175 million users as of September.

The Wall Street Journal reported on its website that executives at Twitter have held "low level" talks with executives at Facebook and Google in recent months about a possible takeover of Twitter.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the WSJ said other companies have also held similar talks.

"But what's remarkable is the money that people familiar with the matter say frames the discussions with at least some potential suitors; an estimated valuation in the neighbourhood of $8 billion to $10 billion," the report said.

The paper said the talks have so far gone nowhere and that Google , Facebook and Twitter all declined to comment. Despite the valuation, the report said Twitter's executives and board were working on building a large, independent company.

"People familiar with the situation said the company believes it can grow into a $100 billion company," the WSJ said.

Twitter, created in 2006, is among a crop of popular Internet social networking services that includes Facebook, Zynga and LinkedIn.

A growing secondary market has developed in shares of the privately held Web sensations and investors are monitoring the companies closely in the hope they might float shares.

It was only in the middle of 2010 that Twitter offered marketers a way to advertise on the service.

Industry research firm eMarketer said last month that Twitter, which doesn't disclose financial information, generated an estimated $45 million from advertising in 2010 and is expected to generate some $150 million this year. 

Google, the world's number 1 Internet search engine, generated roughly $29 billion in revenue in 2010 and Facebook, recently valued at $50 billion, produced about $1.9 billion

Apple iPad 2 now in production

Apple's production partners are already hard at work on the new model of iPad, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The fact that Apple is working on aniPad 2, of course, is common knowledge. The famously tight-lipped company rarely talks about upcoming product launches, and isn't talking now. But Apple has never denied that it intends to follow up on one of its most successful products.

Nearly $5 billion worth of iPads have been sold in the three quarters since its launch. And a quick glance at the history of the iPhone, which launches a new model every year, suggests that we should expect to see the iPad 2 right around the first anniversary of its predecessor's launch: April 3, 2011.


A prototype of the iPad 2 was apparently spotted by a Reuters reporter after the launch of News Corp's iPad publication, the Daily, last week. And an unconfirmed report from DigiTimes in December said that Foxconn, the Chinese makers of the iPhone and iPad, had been ordered to manufacture the iPad 2 in market-ready quantities by the end of February.
The Journal report, which carries three bylines and cites "people familiar with the matter," offers a few more nuggets of detail. It confirms the widely-held belief that the iPad 2 will have a front-facing camera, enabling use of the Facetime videoconferencing app.


It says that the 3G version will again be available on Verizon and AT&T, with Sprint and T-Mobile still shut out. But it contradicts earlier reports that Apple will endow the iPad 2 with a higher-resolution screen, much as the iPhone 4 had significantly higher resolution than the iPhone 3GS.


Apple is likely still working on a higher quality iPad display -- it just won't be ready for the iPad 2.


So will a slightly improved Apple tablet with camera be enough to persuade millions of iPad users to upgrade? Are there other bells and whistles we don't know about yet? 


We have previously reported on rumors that the new device will have an SD Card slot, and that it will feature rear-facing and front-facing cameras. 


We'll know when Apple's acting CEO Tim Cook takes the stage, if this product timeline is accurate, in a few months' time.