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Twitter Is for Sale and News Corp. a Likely Bidder, Michael Wolff Says

Posted Jul 07, 2009 12:12pm EDT by Aaron Task in Internet, Newsmakers, Products and Trends
Related: NWS, GOOG, TWX, DIS, AAPL, MSFT, YHOO
"It's a hard environment to do a deal," but two things are almost certain to occur at Herb Allen's media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho this week, according to Michael Wolff, founder of Newser.com:
  • Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone will be "looking to see what deals might be available."
  • All other media executives will be "looking to see how amendable Twitter is to a deal."

To be sure, Williams and Stone have publicly stated they are not interested in selling Twitter anytime soon, and Marc Andreessen tells Tech Ticker he and other VCs aren't looking for a sale anytime soon.

But just as certainly, Twitter is the belle of Herb Allen's ball and the subject of ongoing speculation about possible suitors.

Wolff agrees Google is the "most likely" buyer of Twitter, given its deep pockets and the fact both Stone and Williams are alums of the search giant. Facebook "would sorely love to buy Twitter," he adds, but it's unclear if Stone and Williams would want to trade shares in one pre-public company for another.

News Corp. is also a likely entrant to any Twitter bidding war, according to Wolff, author of (most recently) The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch.

With News Corp. recently announcing major layoffs at MySpace and Murdoch telling TheStreet.com, "I blame myself" for the Interactive Division growing "out of control and really out of size," it might seem counterintuitive for News Corp. to make a big acquisition in the space.

"I think they probably have lost" the Web 2.0 wars, says Wolff. But "I think they think they can always buy their way back into it" and Twitter would be a smart addition to "their still rather formidable array of new media assets."

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