Twitter could take many forms, depending on new owner

San Francisco: With speculation mounting that Twitter Inc. will soon have a new corporate owner, the 10-year-old social networking service—which has long struggled to define its core purpose—may end up heading in one of several distinctly different directions depending on who ends up paying for it. Salesforce.com could also likely gain much of the benefit of Twitter’s data from licensing its trove of tweets as opposed to buying the whole company. Salesforce.com investors are already spooked by the speculation it could acquire Twitter: its shares are down 6% since news of the company’s interest flared up last week. The media play Twitter’s foray into live streaming of National Football League games and its presence in news gathering could interest media companies such as Disney, which owns sports channel ESPN. Twitter’s presence on mobile devices could help any media company, all of which are struggling to find mobile growth, according to BTIG’s Greenfield.