If Twitter Is for Sale, Selling to Google Isn't the Answer

With the Jack Dorsey back in the CEO-seat at Twitter and the company’s recent lackluster earnings report analysts are starting to speculate that Twitter is for sale. The rumors are pointing towards Google being the most likely (or at the very least, best) candidate to acquire Twitter. Now, I don’t know whether Twitter is or isn’t for sale, but if it is, I don’t think a sale to Google is the answer.

Lots of people argue that Google should acquire Twitter because of their social networking troubles. In my opinion, that is exactly why Google shouldn’t acquire Twitter.

I’ve written this before: Google sucks at social. Part of my argument in that article was that the company just doesn’t know how to innovate for social. And as of 2015, I don’t think that is up for dispute anymore. Google+ failed. An early Twitter competitor, Jaiku fell apart after it was acquired by Google. The only “success” the company has had in social was with Orkut (a social network Google acquired that never really gained any traction in the U.S.), but that too, is now shut down.

So why do you think Google buying Twitter would actually be beneficial? It wouldn’t. The company has shown time and time again that it just doesn’t do well in the social front. I have this terrible feeling that if Google acquired Twitter we would regret it very quickly.

If you want Twitter to be successful and thrive, the company needs to take a cold hard look at itself and remember what it is that Twitter is. Then it needs to focus on innovating and creating new value adds to being on Twitter. Personally, I don’t think user counts will make or break Twitter. If it’s possible, I’d monetize the passer-by users (which it seems there are a lot of) and improve active users experiences with the service.

What do you think?