--- title: Facebook Acquires Twitter and 4 More Deals That Should Happen --- # Facebook Acquires Twitter and 4 More Deals That Should Happen Written By: [Dharmesh Shah](https://www.onstartups.com/author/dharmesh-shah) July 23, 2008 Facebook Acquires Twitter and 4 More Deals That Should Happen Written by [Dharmesh Shah](https://www.onstartups.com/author/dharmesh-shah) on July 23, 2008 - - - - Today's big [news from TechCrunch](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/22/google-in-final-negotiations-to-acquire-digg-for-around-200-million/) is is that Google is in the final stages of acquiring digg for about $200 million.  Makes sense to me.  Particularly given some of Google's recent experiments having social voting in their search results pages. I'd been thinking about startup acquisitions earlier this year (and started keeping a side list of deals I thought *should* get done).  Just as an amusing exercise. ![](http://onstartups.com/Portals/150/images/gear-puzzle.jpg?width=250&height=187&name=gear-puzzle.jpg) **The 5 Tech Deals That *Should* Happen ** Disclaimer:  When I say *should* happen, it's not a prediction, just something that I think makes sense. 1.  **[Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/)** should acquire **[Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/)**:  Let's face it, back in the early days, some of us wondered how Twitter was different from an enhanced version of Facebook status updates.  I think the two products would work well together, and Facebook has the resources to help Twitter get over some of the current platform stability issues. 2.  **[Google](http://www.google.com/)** should acquire **[FriendFeed](http://www.friendfeed.com/)**:  This would be a bit similar to the FeedBurner acquisition (although FriendFeed is nowhere near as far along).  Google gets a good product that can further it's social networking stuff. 3.  **[Microsoft](http://www.microsoft.com/)** should acquire **[Xobni](http://www.xobni.com/)**:  This one's already been talked about before, and almost happened.  It should happen.  Xobini's got a great team, Microsoft needs some new energy in the Outlook group. 4.  **[Intuit](http://www.intuit.com/)** should acquire **[Freshbooks](http://www.freshbooks.com/)**:  You may not have heard of Freshbooks, but it's a cool company with a cool product for invoicing.  Intuit needs a much better web offering, and the Freshbook folks have great design and are great entrepreneurs. 5.  **[Ning](http://www.ning.com/)** should acquire **[Mixx](http://www.mixx.com/)**:  Ning is growing, but needs more "best of breed" style social networking apps.  Mixx is brilliantly executed and more and more people want/need some type of focused social news product as part of a larger social network or community. So, what do you think?  What's your vote for the acquisitions in the remainder of 2008 that *should* happen?  Leave 'em and debate 'em in the comments. ## Related Posts [HubSpot Fires First Shot in Boston Battle For Talent: $10,000 Bounty hubspot January 24, 2011 Over on the west coast, companies like Google and Facebook are duking it out for top tech talent. There’s all sorts of craziness going on including 10% across the board raises and big… Read Post ** ](https://www.onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/37790/HubSpot-Fires-First-Shot-in-Boston-Battle-For-Talent-10-000-Bounty.aspx) [Did The 900-Pound Gorilla Just Vanquish Your Startup Or Validate It? guest February 19, 2014 The following is a guest post by Todd Garland, the founder and CEO of BuySellAds. Todd is a long-time friend, and was one of the early employees at HubSpot before he set out to build… Read Post ** ](https://www.onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/105249/Did-The-900-Pound-Gorilla-Just-Vanquish-Your-Startup-Or-Validate-It.aspx) Subscribe ### Get OnStartup News and Updates in your Inbox. ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Dharmesh Shah", "url" : "https://www.onstartups.com/author/dharmesh-shah" }, "datePublished" : "2008-07-23T15:32:00.000Z", "headline" : "Facebook Acquires Twitter and 4 More Deals That Should Happen", "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://www.onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/6012/Facebook-Acquires-Twitter-and-4-More-Deals-That-Should-Happen.aspx", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://www.onstartups.com/hubfs/mjtw-assets/logos/onstartups-logo@2x.png" }, "name" : "OnStartups" } } ```