Google Wants Twitter Deal, Not Purchase

Google is aiming to team up with the micro-blogging sensation Twitter, not buy it, Dow Jones Newswire reports. A source close to the talks says Google wants to strike up an AdSense partnership to enable Twitter to show Google ads and profit from them. The benefit for Google: less chance of Twitter emerging as an independent competitor or being snatched up by the likes of Microsoft.

This "could change at any time, of course," Kara Swisher writes on All Things Digital. "Google or anyone else could plunk down more than $1 billion in cash, and I cannot imagine Twitter’s investors would or could resist. Nor should they. And what if, for example, Microsoft offered some huge cash payday for Twitter? In that case, I am certain Google would jump into the faceoff, backing up a giant Brinks trunk to the door of Twitter’s San Francisco offices." (More mergers and acquisitions stories.)