The online world has been positively abuzz with news of a potential Google acquisition of Twitter. While the blog TechCrunch has quoted sources as saying such a deal is imminent, others, such as BoomTown, say such talk is the purest speculation.

In either case, however, a big question presents itself: how an acquisition of Twitter by Google would affect Google's competitors in the search space and online advertising market, most notably Microsoft and Yahoo.

Twitter has been boosting its search capabilities, including transferring its search bar from search.twitter.com to its main Website and establishing a "Trends" menu to allow users to see in real time the most talked-about subjects on the site. Any deal between Twitter and Google would bring these capabilities under the search giant's roof.

At the same time, Google could potentially make use of AdSense on Twitter users' pages, exposing Twitter users to contextual ads multiple times per day. Twitter's monetization potential would expand, as the company could receive a substantial percentage of the revenue generated from such ad placements; recently, Twitter has been experimenting with sponsored sites and commercial accounts as ways to generate cash flow.

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