Twitter Would Say 'No' To $1 Billion

While all this may be wouldn’t sell for a billion dollars, four times what Google is rumored to have placed the microblogging service’s value at.

When it comes to Internet businesses, though, Twitter needs to remember that timing is everything. If their endgame is acquisition, there are a few points they might want to keep in mind:

• the economy is down
• the mainstream (and less mainstream) media hasn’t yet turned on Twitter (as it has with previous darlings, including MySpace and Facebook)
• Twitter doesn’t have a (publicly-discussed) business model

  Google has, of course, paid struggling to monetize the most popular video site in the world. Are they prepared to take a chance on another service that doesn’t have a concrete way to turn a profit?

  evenhanded assessment:

  Twitter—while it says it is poised on the verge of announcing its grand plan to make money—is operating in an arena I have seen many other shooting stars in, traversing a very dangerous crevasse of hype and expectation.

  Due to that, it has a very big red target on its back, one that a competitor in the status space—such as the spurned Facebook, whose update business is much bigger—will not ignore.

  Right now, Twitter could ask for a lot, as one of the only Web 2.0 companies that everyone is uniformly excited about.

  That’s one I can agreement. Right now, Twitter could ask for a lot. But I hope they’ve seen examples of other media-sweetheart social companies top dollar—only to end up losing their valuation momentum.

  What do you think? Should Twitter hold out for either a higher price tag or a viable business model (which would probably garner a higher price tag anyway), or should they take what they can get now?

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