New York — Global search engine titan Google relentlessly striving to boost its Google+ analytics tracking abilities, earlier this week announced the acquisition of a small social analytics startup called SocialGrapple, whose founder will likely apply their social graph analyzing expertise to the Google+ social network.
Precise details of the deal were not disclosed, nor any other information other than that the company’s founder is joining the company, but according to TechCrunch this is more of a talent acquisition by Google.
Interestingly, SocialGrapple, is the brain child of Y-Combinator-grad Andrey Petrov, which was established a year ago, who described the tool as enabling Twitter users with an interactive charts and better data representation that track changes in a user’s social graph and sends email reports to help users’ understand their Twitter account and what is going on behind the scenes.
The service lets you compare different kinds of followers, see changes in your follower count, among other analytics. It will even archive every keyword tweet that you specify and show the growth for the particular keyword you choose and track any Twitter social graph over time. Here is a pretty cool example of what SocialGrapple can keep track of over time.
Here is the statement released by SocialGrapple about the acquisition:
SocialGrapple started a year ago, and launched only a couple of months later as a social graph analytics service. It was an amazing learning experience and I am incredibly grateful to all the users who supported this venture. Much of what was built over the months came directly from your needs and requests, so I feel like we were all on this journey together.
Thank you again for being a part of my journey. I strive to continue building tools that make the world more transparent and empowered, and I can not imagine a better partner than Google.
Petrov also commented on a website that he “researched keyword tracking and branched out to other social networks, but this was only scratching the surface. I’m looking forward to taking these ideas to the next level and revealing metrics on an incredibly larger scale.”
Google operates a growing social network called Google+, which it launched a few months ago, and while the new social network has attracted a reasonable amount of headlines, it still has a long way to go to catch up to the social media giant Facebook and micro-blogging site Twitter in size.
One way the company will help Google+ grow is by broadening its feature set and depth of third-party apps. That massive scale is likely to be the swelling Google+ palette, which could have between 40 million and 60 million users, depending on whose market metrics you choose to believe. Google has added well over 100 features to its social network since launching it June 28 and expanding to public beta Sept. 20.
For instance, the company added full Web search to its search box, made Google+ Hangouts mobile and bundled it with a number of control features, including the ability to disable comments and lock posts.
When Google unfurls its platform open to business brands, it could also charge them for analytics to better target consumers with their marketing messages. Twitter and Facebook provide similar analytics tools for marketers. Here is how Petrov described his keyword analytics:
In fact, track a comprehensive list of anyone who mentions your brand in the Twitter ecosystem. In addition to archiving every tweet matching your keyword and visualizing your growth of volume, SocialGrapple also tracks every unique user who enters the keyword. By viewing reports of new unique mentioners, you will know when somebody learns about your brand for the first time. Reacting to new unique mentions lets you look past the fanatics you’ve already converted and get a head start on new potentials while you’re still fresh in their minds.
Petrov’s expertise would be well-suited to this task within Google, where the resources will enable him to develop social analytics on a scale enjoyed by the likes of Salesforce.com, which acquired Radian6 this year for analytics, and VMware, which bought Socialcast for social analytics.
In the meantime, as with so many other social media services Google and Facebook buy and uproot, adding a premium analytics service that companies and brands can use to track and monitor accounts would certainly be a step in the right direction.
Petrov said all payment subscriptions have been canceled and users must download their SocialGrapple data by Nov. 8, 2011, or it will be deleted.