Twitter rejects $500m Facebook offer

LONDON - Talks have broken down in Facebook's bid to acquire Twitter in exchange for $500m (£330m) worth of stock after the two companies failed to agree on the stock's value.

Read: Twitter rejects $500m Facebook offer.

Twitter should remain independant. Facebook will just get far too boring if it has all the power... the nice thing about Twitter is that it's not Facebook!

Twitter is going to regret that in a year or 2 when the next fad comes along...

I'd have taken my cut of the £100m, bought an island and retired. Much more fun than working out a functioning revenue model

Twitter will be initially disappointed but FB will be more so in years to come

I think Twitter is going to regret that. Status updates on Facebook accomplish essentially the same service as Twitter and with a few tweaks on Facebook their status update service could achieve the identical service that Twitter offers. I was surprised that Facebook even tendered an offer and more so that Twitter rejected it. Its the sign of the strange economy that the internet has created where a company with no revenue model is offered to be bought for £330m and the offer is rejected.

I'd like to see Twitter stay independent, but Rob Wingrove makes a good point. It is surprising that Facebook doesn't ust invest their bid into their own Twitter-like service into their existing status update platform. Im sure $500million would be enough to build such a thing. Hey, give me the money and I'll build it! Give it another year and Im Facebook will monopolise.

 Oh boy.  Somebody is going to be kicking themselves later.

 Remember Jerry Yang rejecting the Microsoft $44 billion USD bid for Yahoo ?  

 Yahoo has since dropped in value 60%.

Twitter has peaked in value.  All they have is brand, as the technology can be recreated by anyone.

Yeah, the Mumbai terrorist attacks seems to have given Twitter some much needed public legitimacy rather than its being perceived as just a lightweight blog on the hoof. Twitter has a probable shelf life or maybe two more years. Turning down Facebook on the basis that its shares were valued pre-global meltdown, and therefore the swap undervalued Twitter, is rich coming from a company bereft of a viable business model. Twits!