Not too long ago, the infamous Michael Arrington of TechCrunch reported a rumor where he stated that Google was ( or maybe still is ) in talks to acquire Twitter. For a starter, it may be worthwhile to revisit his argument as to why Twitter is so valuable to acquire these days :

“More and more people are starting to use Twitter to talk about brands in real time as they interact with them. And those brands want to know all about it, whether to respond individually (The W Hotel pestered me until I told them to just leave me alone), or simply gather the information to see what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong.

And all of it is discoverable at search.twitter.com, the search engine that Twitter acquired last summer.

People searching for news. Brands searching for feedback. That’s valuable stuff.

Twitter knows it, too. They’re going to build their business model on it. Forget small time payments from users for pro accounts and other features, all they have to do is keep growing the base and gather more and more of those emotional grunts. In aggregate it’s extremely valuable. And as Google has shown, search is vastly monetizable – somewhere around 40% of all online advertising revenue goes to ads on search listings today.”

In other words, if left alone, Twitter will surely emerge as the new giant in the search industry, – complete with its abundant advertising dollars. The only question is, can Twitter sustain its current operation and mature to be a major player it seems destined to be ? Financially and technically, maintaining its operation as probably one of the strongest social media today must be a very complicated issue. Yet I don’t want to dwell on that.

What I want to talk about is Google’s take on this issue. If the rumor is true, it seems to me that it signals that they want to be the lone, solitary giant in the search engine realm of business. Not that there is anything wrong about that. We all know that as per today, they are the best in terms of skills and resources to serve the biggest search engine in the world.

What makes it more interesting is that Google actually proceeded to make its move by holding talks and discussions with Twitter before the other giant of the industry, Microsoft. Compared to the non-committal and complacent Microsoft, this implies that they again have a better sense of direction as to where the world Internet trends are shifting. And a good business forecasting ability is a crucial pre-requisite if one is to stand on the shoulder of giants.

It is now fascinating time as we wait in suspense whether Google and Twitter made progress in their discussions. On the one hand, Twitter CEO Evan Williams has already sold a successful product he made in the past to Google ( Blogspot ). On the other hand, there is this antitrust issues that put some constraints, – at least categorically, which dictates that Google should proceed carefully here. Again, Arrington noted about this too.

As we wait on any updates on this matter, I’ll just state that Google is showing that it is still going strong as a major giant here. And mind you, it is not a sleeping giant; but rather a very alert and sensible one.

When I fired up my feed reader for today, one particular post from Mashable captivated me. There, Stan Schroder wrote that Google.org has donated USD 14 million “in various grants to partners in Southeast Asia and Africa to help predict and prevent the next pandemic.”

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First of all, ( I am aware that I am slow on this one ), – it’s refreshing to note that Google has its very own philanthropic arm. From its site, I learnt that in 2004, when Sergey Brin and Larry Page wrote to prospective shareholders about their vision for the company, they outlined a commitment to contribute significant resources, including 1% of Google’s equity and profits in some form, as well as employee time, to address some of the world’s most urgent problems. That commitment became Google.org.

Now, it aspires to use the power of information and technology to address the global challenges of our age: climate change, poverty and emerging disease. For this, I think they deserve some applause. When it comes to philanthropy and charity acts, a commitment fulfilled tells us that this world still has some hope. My hats off for them.

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About the news itself, apparently their Predict and Prevent initiative is supporting efforts to identify hot spots where diseases may emerge, detect new pathogens circulating in animal and human populations, and respond to outbreaks before they become global crises. Further, “Business as usual won’t prevent the next AIDS or SARS. The teams we’re funding today are on the frontiers of digital and genetic early detection technology. We hope that their work, with partners across environmental, animal, and human health boundaries, will help solve centuries-old problems and save millions of lives,” said Dr. Larry Brilliant, Executive Director, Google.org.

I am not terribly well-versed in scientific or health-related issues, so for details, I encourage you to visit the project page itself, and of course, the Mashable post I told you about.

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Among the terrible crises that is looming globally over our economy, this particular news has cracked a smile on my face today..