In recent days, it has been reported that search company Google has been making fresh inroads into purchasing microblogging site Twitter.
After the social platform’s stock prices jumped significantly last week, some analysts were apparently puzzled. However, stock market news supplier Briefing.com revealed rumours that Twitter had hired investment banking firm Goldman Sachs in an attempt to stop any Google takeover.
Although the two companies have been linked at least two times before, if this deal were to happen then it would constitute the second largest technology acquisition in history.
The microblogging platform is valued at around $33bn (£22bn), with it being estimated that Google has around $60bn (£40.1bn) in its coffers. However, according to the Guardian, shares or even a debt-funded acquisition may play a part in any possible takeover bid.
Despite this, any deal would still most likely be well ahead of the $19bn (£12.7bn) that Facebook paid for WhatsApp in 2013, although probably lower than the merger of AOL and Time Warner in 2000, which cost $106bn (roughly £71bn today).
It is believed that Twitter’s success may be why it is so attractive to the search firm, as Google has reportedly struggled over the years to develop any product that could get a firm footing in the social sphere. However, the microblogging site would come with an inbuilt user base, with around 300 million people using it each month, posting 500 million tweets to news feeds every day.
With social networks also found to offer extremely valuable advertising space to internet marketing companies, especially on mobile, this could be another reason for the alleged takeover attempt.
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RT @EngageWeb: Google shows renewed interest in buying Twitter http://t.co/aMF7iySbHg
RT @EngageWeb: Google shows renewed interest in buying Twitter http://t.co/aMF7iySbHg