Twitter finalizes its acquisition of TweetDeck

http://www.btobonline.com/article/20110526/SOCIAL0102/305269998/twitter-finalizes-its-acquisition-of-tweetdeck?utm_source=dailynewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=editorial&utm_campaign=dailyclickthroughs

After more than a month of speculation, Twitter Inc. has confirmed that its plan to acquire popular third-party Twitter client TweetDeck has been finalized. No purchase price was disclosed, but CNNMoney has reported that the deal was for about $40 million.


According to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, the TweetDeck acquisition will provide the company with a platform for "power users."

http://adage.com/article/digital/tweetdeck-deal-means-twitter/227746/

Why did Twitter buy TweetDeck? Essentially, to keep the Twitterati that use the app happy and in the fold but, more important, to deliver more ad impressions to a bigger part of the Twitter audience.

"Since TweetDeck users rarely visit the Twitter.com website, they don't see Twitter's advertising, and that's a big hole that needs to be filled," said eMarketer analyst Debra Williamson.

Twitter especially wanted to keep those elite power users out of the hands of Bill Gross' UberMedia, a company that develops third-party Twitter products that was in talks to buy TweetDeck before that deal fell apart. Mr. Gross' company, which had purchased Twitter client Echofon in January, was sanctioned by Twitter last year for serving its own ads on Twitter content.

It only makes sense that third-party services wanted to start making money off Twitter's content, and it also makes sense that Twitter would put a stop to it, gaining control of an unruly ecosystem that includes more than 600,000 developers and close to 1 million apps.

TweetDeck, based in London, is the most popular third-party Twitter monitoring tool, with a 13.1% market share, ranking behind only Twitter's own solutions, according to social media monitoring company Sysomos.