• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, April 3, 2009

Online messaging network Twitter, which has become all the rage of the online world in recent months, is now the focus of the online rumor mill. And the latest rumor is that Google is in the late stages of a bid to acquire the start-up. And even though Google News already had more than 150 stories referencing the speculation early this morning, the original source, a report on highly-regarded industry blog TechCrunch, acknowledged, it is "a heck of a rumor."

Claiming to have "sourced" it from two separate, undisclosed people involved in the negotiations, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington posted, "Google is in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter. We don't know the price but can assume its well, well north of the $250 million valuation that they saw in their recent funding."

Twitter recently turned down a buyout offer from Facebook, which recently redesigned and reformatted its popular social networking site in a way that is not unlike Twitter's successful design.

While TechCrunch's Arrington has a pretty good track record in breaking early deals stories, the Twitter/Google scenario is the second Twitter takeover rumor to be posted this week, and the first one - a $750 million cash acquisition by News Corp. - posted by Federated Media's John Battelle, was clearly just that. He posted it on April 1st.

That said, Twitter rumors clearly have people tweeting, and it is growing fast, currently at about 7 million users, up 15 times from year ago figures, according to Nielsen Online. It also is beginning to attract marketing tie-ins from big consumer marketers.