Apple Will Probably Buy Twitter Next
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Pursuant to Thursday's This Time It's For Real: Apple Has Killed Pandora, I want to expand on the notion of Apple (AAPL_) buying Twitter (TWTR_).
After months of misguided chatter, it's a move that now makes sense. That's because Apple's deal for Beats Electronics changes everything. It could not only render Pandora (P_) extinct, it puts Apple in pole position to dominant every single aspect of the digital music landscape, not the least of which is data and all it can spawn. Better late than never, given that, up until now, Apple failed to innovate in a post-iTunes Store world. But now, Apple's here and, clearly, it means business.
In some respects, Apple's acting as savior for Beats Music. As an offshoot of Beats Electronics, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to burn the cash and absorb the losses necessary to execute. (For the record, I speculated that Beats Music would require a buyout back on April 22 and argued that much-needed financial breathing room was a key component of the deal with Apple two weeks ago. Billboard just got around to regurgitating that thought trajectory after it become apparent last week).
Apple could -- and probably should -- do something similar for Twitter. Come in and catch what is an extraordinarily useful platform before CEO Dick Costolo and the pressures of being a public company drive into the ground.
Taken as one -- so much of what Apple's doing these days smacks of a company that wants to dominate and do the right thing at the same time.