Was Twitter too expensive? I think they priced themselves out of an acquisition by going after the $5m. Jaiku probably sold for less than Twitter's Series A.

Google is like a 1-company bubble, where instead of the acquirer being the general public investing in an IPO, now it's the general public investing in Google, who are spending the public's money on daft startups.

That's a pretty clever workaround to Sar-Ox.

Another proof that the first to market is not always the winner. In case Friendster wasn't proof enough.

Maybe Google does not want to deal with Evan Williams a second time

I bet google does'nt want a rails app.

I seriously doubt that. It probably came down to price.

Almost all apps that Google buys have to be rewritten anyway.

Maybe Jaiku is technically superior.