Twitter Buyout Rumors

Behold the power of Google. All it has to do is set up one Twitter account, and the whole world starts buzzing. Earlier this week, a Google employee activated an official account on Twitter and fired off the first tweet, a series of binary numbers that translated to "Feeling Lucky." (We know you think it's a reference to the search widget, but we prefer to think of it as a love note to yours truly.) Now, the blogosphere is agog with rumors that Google is on the verge of buying the site altogether.

After all, it makes a certain amount of sense. PC World's David Murphy points out that Twitter's popularity is just about where YouTube's was when Google swooped in; December saw 2.7 million visits to Twitter alone, and the service's search function is growing ever more sophisticated. Twitter still hasn't figured out a way to make money, but that didn't stop Facebook from offering $500 million in a failed attempt to buy it last year. Marry Google's search advertising talents to Twitter's ever-growing popularity (members of Congress were tweeting during Barack Obama's national address, for God's sake), and you just might have a new cash cow to graze alongside Google's one-trick pony. "Would a partnership with Google finally give Twitter access to a successful advertising platform and, more importantly, a continued revenue stream that the company has sought since its inception?" Murphy writes. "And most importantly, where would Google first announce its intentions? On the Google blog? On its new Twitter feed?"

That's all well and good, but keep in mind that Google's YouTube acquisition hasn't exactly paid off. Although YouTube's search numbers now exceed Yahoo's, the video site hasn't yet made anywhere near the money to recoup its $1.6 billion price tag, and YouTube has strained Google's relationship with Hollywood and prompted a $1 billion lawsuit from Viacom. At a time when Google is scaling back costs, the company may be more than reluctant to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars it would take to snatch up the site.

Maybe Google's just content to reach a new audience. CNet reports that in the two days since its account went live, Google has snagged more than 27,000 followers, compared with the combined 6,400 followers for rivals Microsoft and Yahoo. On the other hand, someone's already set up "Googlesatan," an anti-Google Twitter account. "Google is the modern day slave sweatshop. Bloggers working around the clock for years for pennies a day." Guess you can't please everyone.