Twitter Should Be Apple of YHOO's, GOOG's and MSFT's Eye
Twitter is the most exciting private company available for any of the big Web companies to buy -- despite its lack of revenue.
The two most valuable pieces of its business are user stickiness (return page views each day off the main Twitter site and through various Twitter clients) and its search. You're right that Twitter search will never best Google's (GOOG). People will use the two for different purposes: Conventional search for library look-ups of info, Twitter Search for polling friends/trusted sources or pop culture info.
Take me for example (this won't make me look good): My TiVo cut off the end of Dancing with the Stars last night, so I didn't know who got kicked off. I went on Twitter and within 20 seconds knew LT got the boot. Couldn't have done that with GOOG search.
Conventional search will always be important, but competitors such as MSFT and YHOO need to find new angles to chip away at GOOG's lead: like Twitter. All three should be looking at it.
Ironically, I told a friend of mine who worked in YHOO's M&A/corp dev group that YHOO should buy Twitter back in 2007. He laughed and said they thought it was a small little fad.
Originally published in RealMoney.com on 4/22/2009 9:54 AM EDT
