San Francisco — After being engaged in hectic negotiations for a few weeks now, it appears that the micro-blogging magnate Twitter has finally acquired TweetDeck, a popular third-party software application for using Internet social networking services, for around $40 — $50 million and an announcement could be made very soon, according to a report in TechCrunch.
According to TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, who was the first to unfold the news, stated that he has heard from a reliable source having “knowledge of the deal,” and that it will be officially announced in the next few days.
Photo: The TweetDeck app on an Apple iPad. Image Credit: Jon Fingas via Flickr…
The deal include both cash and stock and could close in less than ten days, the source said, and would represent one of five-year-old Twitter’s largest acquisitions to date, and analysts are saying that the move is defensive on Twitter’s part.
As arguably the best Twitter client around, and credited for around 13% of all tweets sent on a daily basis, TweetDeck is a hot commodity for the microblogging platform and would give Twitter an application that has won praise among sophisticated users for its slick interface and enhanced capabilities for “power users,” those who tweet many times per day from many different devices, while closing plugging out a potential threat to Twitter’s fast-growing service.
TweetDeck is a UK based company that began life in 2008. TweetDeck develops an Adobe-Air-based application that empowers users to organize all their social media platforms including iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows and also the Chrome browser. Besides, not only can it handle your Tweets, it also integrates with Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Buzz, Foursquare, and MySpace.
However, before Twitter expressed its interest in TweetDeck, it seemed that TweetDeck had previously been in acquisition discussions with UberMedia, a Pasadena Web company established by entrepreneur Bill Gross, in a deal that was valued at less than what Twitter offered.
In fact, UberMedia was bargaining to purchase the company for $25 to $30 million. UberMedia had a 30-day exclusive on the negotiations, but they took too long, and Twitter jumped in with a higher offer.
UberMedia holds some of the top Twitter app such as for BlackBerry (UberSocial) and the “highest rated” Twitter app for Android, Twidroyd and has been allegedly amassing collection of other Twitter applications which some commentators have speculated could ultimately be used to create a rival social network to Twitter.
Interestingly, TweetDeck has long been one of the most popular third-party Twitter clients, if not THE most popular. However, the deal comes a little over a month after Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey returned to the company as executive chairman to manage product development.
Dorsey was quoted as saying, in a talk at Columbia University, fresh after rejoining the company, “TweetDeck is a very interesting client, because it presents a view that no other client in the world presents, which is this multicolumn, massive amounts of information in one pane. And people really, really enjoy that. But I think that is maybe five percent of the Twitter population. That five percent of the Twitter population are some of the most high-value publishers that we have, and they are using the service at extreme velocity. So of course we have to pay attention to that, and I’m not saying we need to rid ourselves of interfaces like that. We have to embrace them.”
Twitter, which empowers people to send 140-character text messages, or Tweets, to groups of so-called followers, is one of the Web’s most popular social networking services, along with Facebook and Zynga.
Moreover, the service has become a popular communications tool for celebrities, politicians and businesses, and has played a role in several geopolitical events, such as recent uprisings in the Middle East. And well, now they certainly do seem to be embracing it, and that 5% of the Twitter population should get quite an uptick if TweetDeck’s features are integrated into Twitter’s own interface.
“But, we also need to speak to the 80 percent that will not be using an interface like that, that do not really understand what Twitter is and that see Twitter mainly as a consumption experience,” Dorsey added.
Perhaps, this acquisition would enable the company to provide users with a balanced experience, but perhaps Twitter wants to be the sole producer of its apps.
Furthermore, it would also give Twitter full control of a space, which would be key if and when Twitter decides to monetize the service, possibly through an advertising platform.