In the evening of Monday 27 September the website of Bloomberg gave the news of an interest on the part of Disney to Twitter, one of the largest social network in the world, which for more than a year struggling to continue to grow and support the competition quite fierce to other companies like Facebook and Snapchat. Rumors about a possible interest on the part of Disney to buy Twitter were already circulated in the past, often from sources less reliable and without any particular details, and had left the time that they came to. The announcement of Bloomberg seems to be more concrete, at least for the reliability of the head on the news of the economy: the two authors of the article, Alex Sherman and Sarah Frier, writing, to have obtained information from sources close to the two companies, and that Disney is working with a financial advisor to evaluate a possible bid for the purchase of Twitter. The news came a few days later by another article, published Friday, September 23, from CNBC, in which were listed some companies that are potentially interested in an acquisition, including Google and Salesforce, a multinational company specialized in customer services and in cloud technologies. The prospect of an acquisition, announced by the press, had led to a significant euphoria in the stock exchange around the title of Twitter, making him earn more than 20 percent, with a performance far above those normally disappointing of the society to Wall Street. The article of Bloomberg yesterday had a similar effect and is keeping the interest high around Twitter, on which future analysts wonder for a long time. As often happens in these cases, neither Disney nor Twitter have denied or confirmed the news to Bloomberg, which, however, are not very detailed. In the article, it speaks generically of "people close" to the two companies, and there are some estimates on the friendship of Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, and on the board of directors of Disney, Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, which in recent years has contributed to the great success of the company by leading some of the major acquisitions like Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm, the production house of the film Star Wars. It was the same Iger wanted Dorsey to the board of directors of his company, as well as Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, to have knowledgeable advisors on the topic of new media and social networks. Many people still believe in Disney as the company of Mickey mouse, of cartoons and theme parks, but in recent years the society has been profoundly transformed by Iger and has become one of the largest media company of the world, capable of producing large gains (8.4 billion dollars in 2015) and to check out several sectors from entertainment to information, going to sporting events transmitted by its ESPN. Disney has not, however, a great online presence and, according to Bloomberg, the acquisition of Twitter would fill this gap and to reach a greater number of users, especially among the new generations who do not subscribe to more cable television, preferring the consumption of streaming content directly online. Twitter, for its part, could take advantage of the offer of Disney content to extend the number of members and have more resources to invest in the transmission of video, strong growth on the social network. At the moment, however, there seems to be nothing concrete on the horizon, and it’s not even clear if there is the interest on the part of Twitter to become a acquire. Several other major companies in the Internet, and not only that, they have evaluated in recent months, the start of negotiations for the sale of the social network, but it has not gone beyond the first contacts. The list of buyers who apparently have renounced, or who have suspended negotiations, is long and includes Microsoft, Time Warner, AT&T, and 21st Century Fox. Cyclically resurfaces also an hypothesis on Google, but the company has so far been very cautious on this issue, also because must first understand how to build an alternative online social network, which at the same time can be complementary and not in direct competition with Facebook, which sees next to the finish line of the 2 billion subscribers. Twitter is a publicly traded company and many of its shareholders have long lobbied for a sale, with the dual hope of picking up anything from the sale of the shares, and to see substantial investment from a new property to re-launch the social network. Twitter has a market value of around $ 16 billion, and an acquisition by another company, it would be particularly onerous, and the uncertain prospects of the company have so far discouraged the offerings. Peter Kafka, who for Recode follows the social network market and its evolution, has written an article that adds to the skepticism about a purchase of Twitter by Disney. Apart from the closeness between Dorsey and Iger, many elements lead us to think that an acquisition would not lead to large benefits for the two companies. Iger knows that Disney produces video content and that Twitter would like to be a company that spreads the video online, but at the same time is aware of the fact that the number of subscriptions to cable tv continues to shrink and that Disney needs online as an alternative to compensate (not a case that recently has invested a billion dollars in BAM Tech, a company that deals with the streaming of the Major League Basebal). Twitter may be the answer to the needs of Disney, but after an acquisition, its ability to negotiate with other content producers would be severely compromised and its ability to develop new solutions for the video content. Twitter would be in the hands of a competitor of the other major manufacturers and distributors of video, which would leave more of their content on the social network. For this reason, according to the most skeptical an agreement with Disney does not make any sense and could be hurting Twitter, which has already numerous problems still unsolved, by the decline of subscribers to the constant cases of abuse and verbal violence in the profiles of its users.
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