Looks like Twitter has found their revenue model: sell to Google:

Why would Google want Twitter? We've been arguing for some time that Twitter's real value is in search. It holds the keys to the best real time database and search engine on the Internet, and Google doesn't even have a horse in the game.

While I have serious doubts about Twitter's ability to monetize their base tool or search (on the latter, there's the whole issue of scale - I'm back to seeing lots of fails on Twitter fetches), there's no question about Google's abilities there. They just extend their existing ad system over to Twitter's live search, and bang, done.

The only question left is whether Twitter will go through with the deal. IMHO, they would be really, really silly not to.

Update: Kara Swisher dumps on the acquisition story. I'll repeat this though: true or not, I think Twitter needs to be acquired by a company that can scale the service. I don't think they can do it on their own.

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