I don't understand why Google keeps getting brought up as a possible purchaser of Twitter. I just don't see it as either a synergistic or a defensive purchase.
- Google already has two-and-a-half social networks (Youtube, Google+, Blogger) if you don't count their ever-relaunching chat apps (Hangouts, Allo, Duo)
- they don't need Twitter to innovate, they don't need them to stay relevant, and they don't need Twitter's presence on phones because they (Google) are likely also present on mobile devices
- they are still the leader in display ads, Twitter is distant third behind Facebook [1], and Facebook has absorbed most of the growth in the last year, but now that AOL and Yahoo have merged (both now owned by Verizon), it's possible that Twitter is fourth behind them (I'll try to confirm with sources)
On a defensive purchase:
- Facebook, Amazon (Twitch), Microsoft, and Verizon are Google's largest threats in the social/ads/attention space; Google dwarfs them all except Facebook. As I've said above, Verizon is the up-and-coming ad network and they stand the most to gain by (approximately) doubling their share, but even if they do so they still won't be a meaningful threat to Google in the near future.
- Snapchat, despite being a serious threat to Facebook (mostly to their subsidiary Instagram), isn't actually a threat to Google -- it infringes on next to no capability that one could enjoyable do with Google's services. This remains unchanged even with Google's new phone-number-bootstrapped chat and video apps, Allo and Duo, which exist primarily to compete with iMessage/Facetime and WhatsApp
- Someone with the most to gain from buying Twitter would be a relative outsider who wants to enter the social space, or get access to influencers and their valuable ad draws. In my opinion, these are Verizon, Amazon, and Yandex. I've posted about this before, here [2][3].
> Someone with the most to gain from buying Twitter would be a relative outsider who wants to enter the social space, or get access to influencers and their valuable ad draws. In my opinion, these are Verizon, Amazon, and Yandex.
I think you are spot on on this Verizon, Amazon, Newscorp or even Sony, but why would Yandex buy it?
My speculation is that Yandex wishes to gain a foothold in the US/Europe/ANZ market for display ads; they already command a significant share in cyrillic countries and Turkey; Turkey is incidentally a large Twitter market.
The primary cyrillic social network is vKontakte whose popularity in those regions is to the detriment of Facebook. Meanwhile Google is a serious threat to Yandex' search share (and therefore, ad money), so expanding beyond their home base would be a good hedge against Google.
If you look at Yandex's portfolio of services you'll notice they're missing a general-purpose social network, and their coverage looks similar to that of Yahoo, with elements of content production (like Verizon/AOL/Yahoo) sprinkled in. But unlike Yahoo which was cash-strapped and couldn't figure out how to monetize Tumblr, Yandex has cash on hand and Twitter would be an expensive, but very strategic purchase.
- Google already has two-and-a-half social networks (Youtube, Google+, Blogger) if you don't count their ever-relaunching chat apps (Hangouts, Allo, Duo)
- they don't need Twitter to innovate, they don't need them to stay relevant, and they don't need Twitter's presence on phones because they (Google) are likely also present on mobile devices
- they are still the leader in display ads, Twitter is distant third behind Facebook [1], and Facebook has absorbed most of the growth in the last year, but now that AOL and Yahoo have merged (both now owned by Verizon), it's possible that Twitter is fourth behind them (I'll try to confirm with sources)
On a defensive purchase:
- Facebook, Amazon (Twitch), Microsoft, and Verizon are Google's largest threats in the social/ads/attention space; Google dwarfs them all except Facebook. As I've said above, Verizon is the up-and-coming ad network and they stand the most to gain by (approximately) doubling their share, but even if they do so they still won't be a meaningful threat to Google in the near future.
- Snapchat, despite being a serious threat to Facebook (mostly to their subsidiary Instagram), isn't actually a threat to Google -- it infringes on next to no capability that one could enjoyable do with Google's services. This remains unchanged even with Google's new phone-number-bootstrapped chat and video apps, Allo and Duo, which exist primarily to compete with iMessage/Facetime and WhatsApp
- Someone with the most to gain from buying Twitter would be a relative outsider who wants to enter the social space, or get access to influencers and their valuable ad draws. In my opinion, these are Verizon, Amazon, and Yandex. I've posted about this before, here [2][3].
[1] (2015) http://www.dmnews.com/digital-marketing/facebook-twitter-to-...
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12083561#12083975
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11913828#11914620