'Facebook to Buy Twitter' Rumours Begin to Fly

by Jarrett Martineau | November 6, 2008 at 03:47 pm

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We picked this one up from CNET and are simply passing it along: Facebook maybe might possibly one day begin to consider the potential of buying Twitter.

So, don't shoot the messenger. Or, in this case, the second messenger.

It's certainly anyone's guess what Yung Zuck & Co plan to do with the microblogosphere's 140 character juggernaut.

John Battelle, CEO of Federated Media, decided to have a little bit of speculative fun onstage with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at the Web 2.0 Summit. It's the sort of "speculative fun" that could give tech bloggers a gossip-overload headache for weeks to come: Battelle decided to throw some fuel on the "Facebook might buy Twitter" fire. Which, as far as I can tell, is a relatively new addition to the rumor-roasting pit.

"Is Twitter just a feature of Facebook?" Battelle prodded. Facebook, after all, has its own "status" feature that arguably competes with micro-blogging services like Twitter and FriendFeed.

Zuckerberg answered cryptically. "Oh, that's tough."

Battelle then asked if Facebook's chief financial officer, Gideon Yu (yes, the one who's reportedly hunting for V.C. dollars in Dubai right now, depending on who you ask) has a "build-or-buy spreadsheet" on the wall of his office, jokingly implying that the company could be weighing the option of acquiring Twitter to boost its own "update" service. There wouldn't be a particularly logical way for the two to integrate, but what the heck? It's juicy, unfounded gossip ripe for the mongering! And once these things start, they can get deliciously out of hand.

Zuckerberg laughed it off, and said he's "really impressed by what they've done" at Twitter, and that it's "a very elegant model."