Twitter’s sale talks have been doing rounds for quite some time now but have quickened up a bit in last few days. According to latest reports, the micro-blogging website is reportedly in talks with the likes of Google and Salesforce and may receive a formal bid from one or more companies soon.
Many companies like Verizon, IBM have in the past, shown interest in buying out Twitter but nothing really materialized out of it. While no deal is imminent, talks between the companies are reportedly intensifying, and a bid and subsequent agreement could be signed by the end of 2016.
Twitter shares jumped on the news by a significant amount — the most in 2 years, actually — reaching a high of almost 23 percent, before slipping down slightly to reach stability at around $22 per share.
Twitter woes have not been hidden from anyone. Monthly active user growth has been essentially flat for the past several quarters. Despite Jack Dorsey being at the helm for more than a year now and several new features and abilities launched, nothing seems to have cut a mark for the networking platform.
Recently, Twitter made an important change to its service by relaxing the 140-character tweet limit that has defined its social network for the last decade. Now, photos, videos, animated GIFs, and polls attached to a tweet will not count towards the 140-character limit.
The rumors of prospective buyout were further strengthened when Salesforce.com’s Chief Digital Evangelist, Vala Afshar, tweeted about the platform,
Why @twitter?
1 personal learning network
2 the best realtime, context rich news
3 democratize intelligence
4 great place to promote others— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) September 23, 2016
Twitter, Google, and Salesforce haven’t responded to the reports yet.