Are Microsoft and Google hoping to get into Twitters treasure trove of real-time information?
Yes, says Kara Swisher of AllThingsD, citing sources who indicate that the two companies are separately in talks with Twitter about data licensing deals. This would involve the exchange of several million dollars plus a revenue-share to “compensate Twitter for its huge and potentially valuable trove of real-time and content-sharing information, generated from the data stream of billions of tweets of its 54 million monthly users,” Swisher wrote. What’s unclear is whether either deal will actually come to fruition. More concrete is the likelihood that Twitter won’t strike any exclusive deals, considering the company is (according to Swisher) “seeking to create a large open platform, which many could plug into, from search engines to marketers to publishers to developers”. Twitter, which just raised about US$100 million at a valuation somewhere in the neighborhood of US$1 billion, doesn’t have a significant revenue stream in place yet. It’s slated to launch a premium-services package late
