Last week, news broke that Apple had, at one point, been in talks with Twitter over a massive investment in the social network. The report described the move as a “strategic investment” believed to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Initially, it was believed that these negotiations had taken place in recent months. But a rebuttal by The Wall Street Journal claimed that it’s been more than a year since this happened. And today, The WSJ is back with more information…
From The WSJ Digits blog:
“Apple Inc. floated the idea of investing in Twitter Inc. as the companies discussed integrating the social service into Apple’s mobile operating system last year, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Apple floated the idea at the time and it didn’t progress into serious discussions or negotiations, this person and other people familiar with the matter said. They added that the product-integration deal came together very quickly, as Apple’s talks with another potential partner — Facebook — stumbled.”
The report goes on to say that Apple and Twitter remain very close, and continue to discuss future product integrations. And we could see the fruition of that relationship as early as this fall, in the next major iTunes release.
It’s not known why early investment talks failed between the two companies. Though admittedly, it would have been a strange move. Apple doesn’t usually spend hundreds of millions of dollars unless it’s acquiring a company, and Twitter has publicly turned away offers from the likes of Microsoft and Google for various reasons.
Nevertheless, it’ll be interesting to see what this newfound partnership leads to.