Here’s the it-hasn’t-happened-yet scenario, which surfaced first: David Gelles wrote late yesterday, "The fund hopes to acquire 10 per cent of the online messaging service for $450m, valuing Twitter at $4.5bn, according to people familiar with the plans. . . .  It is not clear if the JPMorgan fund will make a direct investment or buy out existing investors and shareholders with Twitter’s approval."

Michael Arrington, on the other hand, claimed the whole thing’s already in the past.  He wrote, "J.P. Morgan isn’t currently trying to buy Twitter shares . . . .  That’s because they already indirectly own 10% of Twitter. . . .  Over the last several months, that fund has acquired around $400 million in Twitter stock from current shareholders, at prices ranging from $16 – $21/share.  At $21/share, that implies a Twitter valuation of $4.5 billion."

Either way, the move’s significant.  It indicates that JPMorgan, which still commands a fair amount of respect, has made Twitter a top priority (since the digital growth fund seems to have made Twitter its first target).

It also hints that Twitter’s value in investors’ eyes continues to grow, since the last time we wrote about the figure, it was only $4 billion.

Anyway, we’ll be sure to provide an update if either scenario’s confirmed.

Meckler writes," The JPM team liked the Internet when it was hot, but did not like it very much when the Net was not. Of course that is why they play with money other than their own. They chickened out and ran to try to make themselves look good with their clients."

He points out that in 2000 that he predicted that large media companies would be spending most of their business development time purchasing vertical or specialized Web sites. For examples Meckler cites Dow Jones buying MarketWatch.com and The New York Times buying About.com

Meckler also points out that TechTracker.com was recently purchased by Cnet for what is believed to be around $15 million.  He writes, "Internet.com Venture Funds was once one of the larger investors in TechTracker. When the JPM team pulled our funding we lost an opportunity to buy more of TechTracker at a discount to our original investment. Then JPM turned around and sold their interest in TechTracker (and several other Internet.com VC portfolio companies) to a buyer of ‘distressed’ assets for pennies on the dollar."

He goes on to write," There are more one-time Internet.com VC portfolio companies that are now very profitable and getting ready to be sold. The JPM private client group really knows how to run money!"