If Google bought Twitter, the Twitter service would see some immediate improvements, Sterling said. Twitter posts would be incorporated into Google search results. Twitter's own search would be improved. Google would monetize Twitter with ads. But in the end, it could face Blogger's destiny.

"You might see Twitter maintain its current leader status for a while, but maybe not see if evolve as dynamically as it would under the stewardship of its founders," Sterling said.

It can't be encouraging that Google decided to stop actively developing Jaiku, a Twitter competitor Google acquired in 2007. Instead, Google has decided to port Jaiku to Google App Engine, and later to release the Jaiku engine as an open-source project under the Apache license.

The Jaiku service is maintained by volunteer Google engineers. Google also recently put mobile social-networking service Dodgeball out to pasture.

Other signs that would point against a Twitter acquisition are recent comments made by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who called Twitter "a poor man's e-mail" and wondered whether it will remain a stand-alone service or become an e-mail feature. Schmidt has also said recently he doesn't foresee Google making major acquisitions in the immediate future.