This is kind of funny.
You can now bet real money on who will acquire Twitter in 2009. I tend to agree that this will happen, and in fact one of my predictions for 2009 was that Twitter would be acquired:
pennies on the dollar compared to its previous valuations. It will be
integrated as a feature into some unified communications platform. It
is not viable as a stand-alone company unless the founders can afford
to run it out of their basement.
BetOnline, the site taking the bets, has these odds:
- Google – even money
- Facebook 5 to 1
- Microsoft 10 to 1
- Yahoo 20 to 1
- Field 5 to 1
- No 2009 acquisition 2.5 to 1
I can't say I agree with the odds at all.
Twitter still has no viable monetization strategy, so far the best idea that's been floated is to post advertisements on their search engine. I think I've made it pretty clear that I consider advertising to be a shrinking revenue source for companies without the imagination to think of something better, or who don't provide a service valuable enough to actually pay for.
Long-term, I still feel very strongly that Twitter is not a product but
a feature of a unified communications platform. It's distributed
instant messaging, simple as that. It will eventually be commoditized,
and so the only thing worth paying for is its brand and user base. That also means that its peak value is right now, while the buzz is the strongest, so there's no doubt in my mind that the owners will capitalize on that. Good for them.
But that rules out any company that would be acquiring them as a source of revenue. That means Facebook is out. They're struggling bad enough without the additional debt they'd have to take on. Buying virtual bunny rabbits only brings in a limited amount of dough. (Rumors of an IPO are ludicrous IMO, if they move quickly they'll get there just in time to see the bottom of the next market crash.)
Google already acquired and killed Jaiku, there is quite obviously no synergy there for a distributed IM system. They're also reportedly a bit tight in the cash department (earnings come out tomorrow, April 16th, so I might be going out on a limb here but I highly doubt it). They also already have an enormous user base. This makes no sense, even though they're the even money bet.
Microsoft is a little bit more interesting. They're still giving away cash trying to get eyeballs, so this makes a little more sense, they're obviously desperate to attract consumers. They also have the cash to spend. One angle of this acquisition that I find particularly intriguiging is that by acquiring Twitter they could push their own Silverlight-powered fat client on users, putting a serious dent in the Adobe Air market. Twitter fat clients are hugely popular. I kind of like this one.
Yahoo? Psht, please. I doubt they'll even be around in a year. I can't believe anybody would bet on them. A zombie company.
The field (anyone else) is also kind of interesting. There are plenty of older companies out there with big cash piles who want to stay relevant. An IBM or even Adobe might make a play here, really any company that wants to make a splash and make themselves relevant and cutting-edge again.
To me the field and Microsoft seem like the best bets. I might even go lay a few bills on each of them just for kicks.
It's kind of fun to see some real action in the Web industry again, seems like things had kind of grown stagnant there for about six months. At least it's something to talk about. Placing bets on this kind of thing at least keeps it interesting 
And oh by the way, reading the comments in the Techcrunch post confirms that Silicon Valley is still firmly out in la-la land when it comes to making money. People are still trying to figure out how to build the biggest user base instead of how to make actual cash. These guys still have their head inside of a popping bubble
