SAN FRANCISCO — With speculation mounting that Twitter will soon have a new corporate owner, the 10-year-old social networking service — which has long struggled to define its core purpose — may end up heading in one of several distinctly different directions depending on who ends up paying for the company.Firms including Walt Disney, Google and Salesforce.com have shown interest in Twitter, which is working with investment banks to evaluate its options, according to people familiar with the matter.With Salesforce.com, Twitter might turn its focus to customer service communications and mining its database of tweets for business intelligence.Google is likely to be the most interested in the social and news dimensions of Twitter. Disney, by contrast, might see it as a way to expand the reach of the company’s sports and entertainment programming.It is not clear how quickly Twitter might approach a sale, but it is moving to formalise the process, sources have said. A deal is by no means...
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