OMG! Twitter might buy Summize

Over the past day, a flurry of tech blogs has bloomed with rumors that microblogging service Twitter might buy Summize, a nifty Twitter search engine.

The juicy news was first reported by a virtually unknown blogger, Josh Chandler. And with all the chatter, you'd think it were the next AOL-Bebo. That's because the world of tech blogs (and this one is no exception) has a remarkable tendency to ignore the fact that Twitter is still largely a foreign concept outside the digitally astute and that there are plenty of avid Twitter users who still don't know what Summize is.

The rumor is also still a good deal unfounded. GigaOM wrote that "it is not just a rumor and a deal is certainly in the works." Silicon Alley Insider wrote that "a source close to the company tells us it's not true."

Neither Twitter nor Summize was immediately available for comment.

As far as acquisitions go, this one would at least make sense. Twitter's own search functions are limited, and Summize has proven to be one of the more impressive applications built on Twitter's application program interface (API). It's proven useful for searching up-to-the-minute conversations, a helpful tool to see what people are saying across the Web.

The problem would be, as Chandler himself points out, that Twitter has plenty of its own issues and an acquisition could be distracting, to put it nicely. With Twitter's own stability and profitability still on the line, this promising start-up could easily make a wrong turn if it lets that fresh $15 million in funding get to its head.