What to make of the latest move by Twitter to use its messaging platform to facilitate shopping? The social media platform said on 18th June that it had begun testing a new system that would be promoting both “products and places” in its feeds.

The deal with Google announced by Twitter has got a lot of people talking. Under the deal, advertisers can purchase ads on Twitter via the Doubleclick buying system developed by Google, with the result that Google displays real-time tweets as actual search results. The deal has led to gossip that Google is using the agreement as a kind of test-run to determine if acquiring Twitter would make sense. Merger talk was very evident at the Engage 2015 social media conference in Prague, held in May.

Twitter revealed weaker-than-expected earnings results at the end of April, citing advertising as the problem; however, do not be fooled into thinking that this social network is on a permanent slide.

Think of an effective social media tool for business and Facebook will likely spring to mind; however, Twitter has been playing catch up and could even become the social media platform of choice for savvy business marketers.

On 5^th February we reported breaking news that Google and Twitter had re-established relations after a four-year standoff. The new deal again allows the search giant access to Twitter’s “Firehose” data stream. But since then, there’s been radio silence – a verbal void that’s generated enormous speculation around what search results will look like and how Google will use the Twitter data. Search expert Miriam Hirschman, writing this week in SearchEngineLand, has offered some informed suggestions.

A couple of weeks ago we reported on the trials and tribulations of Meerkat, the increasingly popular live streaming app that unwittingly built itself on top of Twitter’s social graph, distribution and communication systems, unaware that the social media giant had already acquired a rival live-streaming app, Periscope.

Reports that Google may be launching a new bid to purchase Twitter have seen the latter’s share value leap by 4.8 percent this week, adding more than £1bn ($1.5bn) to its value.

If video production is your poison and you fancy yourself as a budding citizen-journalist, you might find livestreaming video app Meerkat hard to resist.

Bloomberg has reported that a significant partnership has been struck between Google and Twitter that will see real-time tweets from the latter reinstated in Google’s search results.

December turned out to be a pretty good month for Twitter, despite its earlier plunge in share price. The analyst firm Argus decided on 22^nd December that it was a good time to buy Twitter shares, even though their price had fallen to not far off the lowest point in the company’s dramatic 52-week share range ($29.21 to $74.73). Argus set the target price at a relatively healthy $44.