Andre Yoskowitz
3 Jan 2011 0:26
According to the Financial Times, social networking giant Facebook tried to purchase microblogging site Twitter in 2008 for $500 million, but was rejected.
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says he wanted the service to become "a viable business" rather than have it taken over by a larger company.
"We've created something that people are finding value in," added Stone. "But we haven't yet created a business out of this, and we really wanted to do that."
In 2008, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg offered $500 million in private Facebook shares for the company but Twitter founders Stone, Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey each agreed that Facebook offered nothing that they wanted.
The microblogging site has 175 million registered users. 95 million tweets are sent daily.
Twitter has been valued at over $3 billion in recent fund-raising sessions despite never making one cent of profit.