Twitter, Microsoft, Google & Social Media Drama

What a busy week this has been! The long awaited Windows 7 operating system has been released and Apple has updated its iMac and MacPro lines. In addition, Nokia announced that they are suing Apple over the iPhone alleging that a number of patents were infringed upon including encryption, speech coding, security and wireless data.

All A Twitter

But the big news, at least as far as the social media world is concerned, is Twitter. You know, that 140 character micro-blogging site that has suddenly emerged as one of the chief platforms by which businesses and individuals send out pithy messages to all who would read them. Twitter is far behind Facebook in size, but they aren’t really competing with each other – lots of folks use both. Still, with some 50 million users, Twitter has emerged as a force to be reckoned with, something that hasn’t escaped the eyes of big tech companies such as Google and Microsoft.

Twitter has been rumored to be on the auction block despite receiving more than one billion dollars in funding recently. Notable names such as Morgan Stanley, T. Rowe Price, and Benchmark Capital are now standing behind Twitter, pouring vast amounts of cash into a scheme that doesn’t yet make any money. In fact, Twitter is losing millions as it tries to maintain its creaky presence online – we’ve all experienced those brief down times and extended outages, minor annoyances that are easily corrected with a refreshening of the browser.

Licensing Deals

Rumors that Google, Microsoft or even Amazon might buy Twitter have been spread for many months now. Though avid Twitter users would prefer that the microblogger provider remain independent, we all know that consolidation is the name of the game in any industry. You can go it alone for just so long, but the economies of scale require at least some form of outside help if your enterprise is to continue to grow and prosper.

Well, there isn’t a deal in place, but Twitter did sign a pair of licensing agreements with Google and Microsoft that are worth taking note of. Specifically, both companies inked their own agreements where they will gain access to Twitter’s real time data (tweets) and include those with their search engines. Though search engine data is typically fairly current, they lack the real time data that attracts people to Twitter in the first place.

What this means is that the next time you use Google Search or Bing (Microsoft’s search engine) you’ll find some real time tweets included with the results. Google says that these results will appear within the next few months, while Microsoft is mum about their plans. How all of this will work out is a mystery too – there are plenty of tweets of little value and aren’t worthy of inclusion in my opinion.

Long Term Survival

Long term, ensuring Twitter’s independence may depend on two things – licensing deals with the search engines and some way to harness businesses by charging them a fee for them to access Twitter under their real name. The way things are currently set up if you want to hijack a business name or brand you can do so by sending tweets under the guise of someone else. With a new business model in the works, that won’t be possible because Twitter will step up its verification of certain users and eliminate that scourge completely.

Lastly, how will Facebook respond to these Twitter happenings? Rumors that it will come out with its own microblogging feature have surfaced from time to time. With more than 300 million users, Facebook is a force to be reckoned with, one that could over run Twitter if they find some way to blend their current business model with microblogging.