bloggingbuyouts

Last night, I was at the Bloblive event in Philly where people go on stage and talk about their cool business ideas. Interestingly enough, the event organizers used Facebook to invite people. And, at the event, there was a live Twitter feed, where users could make comments.

It was cool stuff, which shows the effective use of integrating social media.

Well, speaking of integrating things, it looks like Facebook has had some serious discussions to buy Twitter. In light of the slowing economy, I'm sure that these discussions are popping up among many social media companies.

The proposed price tag? A cool $500 million.

However, it was not for cash; instead, it was for Facebook stock. With the fall in equities, it's a good bet that the stock is worth much less than its previous valuation of $15 billion. Twitter wasn't impressed.

Indeed, Twitter still has lots of momentum and appears to be the next dot-com darling. With its growing user base, there should be opportunities to monetize things, which could help bolster the valuation.

If Twitter really wants to sell out, its best alternative is probably to go to an established player that has a solid stock value and cash in the bank such as a Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) or Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Streetsmart Guide to Short Selling: Techniques the Pros Use to Profit in Any Market. He is also the founder of BizEquity, a valuation website.