Despite rumors to the contrary, Twitter has absolutely no interest in joining the Facebook “family.” Reports indicate that the folks behind Twitter turned down the buy-out offer, which included $500 million in stock, as early as three weeks ago. “So why did the deal break down? Well, as is usually the case, over price,” writes Kara Swisher at All Things Digital. “The $500 million offered was in an all-stock form … Twitter wanted cash, which was not possible for Facebook, or Facebook stock at an even lower valuation than $5 billion.” While some in the industry expect a deal to go down at some point in the near future, many feel that Twitter would rather stand on its own than have to deal with the policies (and politics) of another organization.

Elsewhere, Google sees big things in the future for its Chrome web browser. Despite the lack of long-term buzz and a disappointing 0.74% market share, many within the company see 2009 as being the “year of Chrome.” “We could work with [a computer manufacturer] and have them ship computers with Chrome pre-installed,” Google Vice President Sundar Pichai told the London Times. Pichai also mentioned that the company is also planning to do something a bit “out of the ordinary” — advertise and market the new software. “We will throw our weight behind it … Once we get it out of beta we will work hard at getting the word out, promoting to users, and marketing will be a part of that.” Both the Chrome advertising campaign and the “beta-free” browser that it will be based upon is expected to arrive sometime in January.

In other news, Sony is planning to rejoin the world of online web video … in a way. The company has officially relaunched Crackle, a site dedicated to the proliferation of videos bearing the Sony name. Unlike Hulu and the CBS Social Viewing Room, however, the new service will not completely rely on network or cable-based programming. Instead, users will be treated to a variety of shows filmed exclusively for the site, with each clocking in at a scant five minutes. Feature shows include a new sketch comedy offering by legendary comedy troupe The Groundlings and Anytime, a “five minute talk show” hosted by Hollywood writer Bob Kushell. Crackle is up and running now.

Next, it seems as if Microsoft’s Live Search will be undergoing a name change in the near future. While it seems like an odd thing to do, many insiders feel that a change is needed in order to diversify the brand. “Live.com has a lot of different services under its umbrella (some server software, some client software) in addition to search,” writes TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington. “Over time, we’ve heard, Live.com will become a pure social network and personal productivity portal But search belongs somewhere else, and it definitely needs a fresh start.” At press time, the name is unknown, but many feel that it will end up being Kumo, which is Japanese for “cloud.”

And finally: Advertising is coming to an illicit peer-to-peer file sharing network near you, thanks to a start-up called PeerMatrix. Instead of a traditional marketing push featuring banner ads and “featured content,” the platform unwittingly forces the user to load the advertisements by using a process the company calls AdMorph. When a user enters a search, the PeerMatrix software automatically renames the ad to correspond with whatever the user is looking to load. The user then loads the ad instead of the intended file. While some lament the new network as a glorified “band-and-switch” scheme designed to circulate spam, others see it as “Karmic payback;” the result of illegally sharing copyrighted material for so long. PeerMatrix, complete with it’s controversial AdMorph technology, is available now.