Infinite Path

The internet has been buzzing today with the news that Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, has signed up to Twitter in a move which has been interpreted as a public declaration of intent with regards to a deal between the two companies.

At the time of writing, Schmidt has hardly been a prolific user of the service, boasting just two tweets but amassing an impressive following of 4,566 users.

So much has been read into Schmidt’s decision to join Twitter because he has previously been quoted as saying that “as a computer scientist” he views “all of these as sort of a poor man’s email systems”. These comments caused outrage at the time, even though Schmidt later defended his statement by saying that he had intended to put forward an argument for a holistic approach to communication online, which takes into account both e-mail and social media sites such as Twitter.

It is possible that Google will make some kind of statement later today which may cast light on a potential deal between the search engine and Twitter. Earlier this year, the internet was full of rumours that Google was caught up in intense negotiations with the site to acquire the service for hundreds of millions of dollars in a bid to take advantage of the real time search capabilities (believed by many to be the next step forward in the realm of search engine marketing) of the social networking site.

The move, considered a win-win situation for Google by many, was met with criticism and cynicism by others, who view practically any decision from the search engine giant as another attempt to take over and, in effect, ‘own’ the entire online world.