Twitter rebuffs $500m stock offer from Facebook

Twitter has rebuffed an offer from Facebook to acquire the thought-streaming company for $500 million in Facebook stock, according to All Things Digital's Kara Swisher.

She reports that execs at both companies were nearing the end of discussions when talks broke down over the price of the deal. Facebook offered "$500 million" in stock (update: TheDeal reports that $100 million was to be in cash) -- but at the Microsoft-purchased share price, a price which could fairly be considered, um, inflated. On top of that, Twitter investors and execs think the company should take a shot at actually building revenues, rather than selling out for who-knows-how-much real money in Facebook stock. 

In Twitter's last funding round the company was valued at $98 million -- and Swisher notes that there are a number of other companies that could also be interested in Twitter, including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft or -- I suspect more likely -- a large telecom like AT&T or Verizon.

Twitter has high hopes for its "secret business model", which will be announced early next year.