Why? As research house Jefferies & Co. explains in a research note to clients today, if Twitter hasn’t yet managed to transform its popularity into significant revenue, how will Microsoft (MSFT) or Google (GOOG)?

“While we believe Microsoft pulled off a little bit of a media/PR coup by announcing the Twitter deal and forcing Google to rush into a similar deal, we do not believe Microsoft will be able to capitalize on its first mover advantage in the short run since neither search engines nor Twitter have figured out how to monetize the data streams from Twitters (affectionately known as Tweets),” Jefferies analysts wrote.

“We believe that users focused on real-time data would be less tolerant to advertising,” the research note adds. “That said, we can see new business models emerging down the line where the realtime tweets blended with local information (traffic conditions, flight arrivals, etc.) could be more easily monetized and where ‘premium’ tweets from celebrities could be included for a premium subscription. For now, the real-time data integration would mean more refreshes from the users to get up to the minute updates, which should translate into higher query volume, all else equal.”
 

In August 2007, just after former Apple exec Jon Rubinstein joined Palm, Apple CEO Steve Jobs warned Palm CEO Ed Colligan against poaching his company’s employees. “We must do whatever we can to stop this,” he said, according to communications reviewed by Bloomberg. Colligan declined. “Your proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other’s employees, regardless of the individual’s desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal,” he told the Apple CEO, noting–ironically–that Cupertino had hired away some two percent of Palm’s workforce as it began developing the iPhone.

And that’s proven a wise move. Today, the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating just such gentleman’s agreements as a collusive restraint on trade. And Palm (PALM) and Apple (AAPL) are sparring over intellectual property and the Pre handset, which Apple claims “falsely pretends to be an iPod.” How convenient for Palm that these communications should emerge now when its Cupertino rival is giving it such a hard time. And such a distraction for Apple legal….

Of course, Jobs was right to worry. Within a year of his warning to Colligan, Palm hired away Mike Bell and Lynn Fox, Apple VP of CPU software in the Macintosh hardware division and head of Mac PR respectively, among others hired later. And within two years, Palm debuted a new handset that some consider a worthy rival to the Apple iPhone.

Jeff Zwerner, who did stints at Apple as both senior art director and creative director for packaging, has signed on at Palm (PALM) as senior vice president of brand design.

Zwerner joins Palm Chairman and CEO Jon Rubinstein, formerly Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering; Senior VP of Product Development Mike Bell, former SVP of product development at Apple (AAPL); VP of Public Relations Lynn Fox, who once headed up Mac PR for the Cupertino, Calif., company; and board member Fred Anderson, who served as Apple’s CFO from 1996 to 2004.

Quite a collection. And it doesn’t include rank-and-file employees who’ve train-hopped from Cupertino to Sunnyvale. Seems Palm’s makeover isn’t so much a reinvention as a reimagining of the company as a sort of paint-by-numbers version of Apple.

Gone are the days of the silly clock-speed race, the megahertz myth, “performance per watt” war and the great AMD (AMD)-Intel dual-core PR shootout. Now Intel wants us all to know that while it’s still “inside” our PCs, it’s outside them in a variety of other ways as well. “Many people take for granted what we as a company helped drive,” Intel spokesman David Dickstein told MarketWatch. “We’re hoping that we’re not just known as a microprocessor company, but as a move-society-by-quantum-leaps company.”

Could it also be the day after Palm rolls out its new Pre handset? The latest rumors suggest it is, positing June 7 as one of the release windows for the Pre and noting that the company is casting a viral video campaign slated to run through that month as well.

It’s an intriguing thought, but would Palm (PALM) really do such a thing? It seems doubtful. Certainly, debuting a handset as anxiously awaited as the Pre a day before Apple’s WWDC keynote would be a bold move that would generate no end of jawing in the tech media and beyond.

But only for about a day. Because 24 hours later all eyes and ears will shift to WWDC and they’ll be watching not just for the next iPhone but for this mysterious new tablet device we’ve been hearing about, as well and in who’s hands those devices may or may not debut. If Steve Jobs delivers the keynote and announces them, the media’s focus will be on his health, Apple’s future and these new devices. If he doesn’t, the focus will STILL be on his health, Apple’s future and these new devices.

So for Palm to launch the Pre on June 7 would be sheer lunacy. To do so would be to set itself up to have its most important product release in years washed away in a deluge of Apple (AAPL) coverage. Better to launch the device well in advance of the next iPhone’s expected arrival or after it than be subsumed in the iPhone/iTablet monomania that’s ramping up. WWDC is already sold out.

Oh, one last thing–an interesting side note. My last message to Palm’s PR head, Lynn Fox, was met with an out-of-office message explaining she’s away on vacation until May 11. Resting up for the big announcement, presumably, which–given her return date–may fall closer to the originally rumored May 17 drop date than thought.

A couple thoughts: Odd, isn’t it, that we’ve seen two stories on an Apple/Verizon deal in as many days in two major news publications? They are presumably well-sourced and bullet-proof. Could be that “people familiar with the matter” are Apple execs simply using the media to put the screws to AT&T (T) in advance of the two companies’ iPhone contract renewal negotiations.

Or is it something else?

Perhaps these pieces are the first signs of the Apple’s cunning PR machine ramping up for some big announcements this summer. An Apple tablet/e-book reader is likely different enough from an iPhone that it wouldn’t interfere with AT&T’s exclusive deal on the device. And what of that “iPhone light” mentioned in the BusinessWeek story? Could it perhaps be an iPhone LTE? Or rather iPhone LiTE? A new device designed for the LTE (long term evolution) standard Verizon will begin supporting widely right around the time AT&T’s exclusive iPhone deal expires?

What a lousy week for the digital GOP.

First, John McCain’s domestic policy adviser conjures up a PR disaster by crediting the senator with the development of the Blackberry–odd, since McCain’s not exactly a digital native. Then former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina says U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s not qualified to run HP. And now, Palin’s Yahoo email account has been hacked and its contents published to Wikileaks. Serves her right for using Yahoo Mail.

What at astonishingly tech-savvy presidential ticket. Keystone Kops on the campaign trail.

The McCain-Palin campaign and Yahoo (YHOO) haven’t yet confirmed the authenticity of the hack or the published emails, but Amy McCorkell, a member of Alaska’s Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, tells Wired that one of her messages to Palin is among those posted to Wikileaks.

An ugly turn of events for Palin, who’s been criticized recently for using her Yahoo Mail account to conduct official government business. Uglier still if the deletion of Palin’s Yahoo accounts is considered an obstruction of justice.

UPDATE: McCain-Palin 2008 Campaign Manager Rick Davis just issued the following statement on the matter: “This is a shocking invasion of the Governor’s privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment.”

That response would seem to resolve the authenticity issue. Now whom do we have to bomb to get those emails off the Web?