Got to hand it to Michael Arrington for this great scoop. His site, TechCrunch, is reporting that Google is in talks to purchase Twitter. According to "two separate people close to the negotiations," the deal is in late stages.

Besides complete and total Internet domination, why would Google bother with the micro-blogging service that has yet to even unveil a business plan? Perhaps it's because of Twitter's vaunted “real-time search” of Tweets. As Arrington explains:

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.

How is Twitter's search different from Google's? In a word, simplicity. Twitter is only searching and indexing 140 character tweets, not scouring and ranking whole websites based on complex algorithms. Therefore, Twitter's search results are more immediate, or available in "real time."

Beyond marketing, others claim that the Twitter search function can provide a unique insight into news and events, a thought that Valleywag's Owen Thomas throws cold water on:

Williams's Twitter, which lets users post short updates about whatever thought crosses their minds, is being hailed by the Valley's groupthinking bloggers as a revolution in "real-time search." Much as a stopped clock is right twice a day, occasionally one finds some bit of timely news posted by a Twitter user. (It's hardly a threat to established newsgathering operations, because more often than not, what's posted on Twitter is just a link to some page on CNN.com or nytimes.com.)

The fact that Google is in cost-cutting mode and has engaged in significant company layoffs also seems to belie any major purchases. However, Google has a history of purchasing hot web properties with no real revenue model... they bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock.

For what it’s worth, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone addressed the rumors on the Twitter blog.

It should come as no surprise that Twitter engages in discussions with other companies regularly and on a variety of subjects.

That’s certainly not a denial.