Los Angeles — Relentlessly striving to keep pace with its rivals in the mobile space, micro-blogging outfit continues its shopping spree with its latest acquisition of iOS testing firm Clutch.io, a company that prides itself in devising an iOS framework for A/B testing, the process of quickly testing the effectiveness of one design or feature vs. another. The company made the announcement of its acquisition by Twitter in a blog post.
On its website, the company portrays itself as “an easy to integrate library for native iOS applications designed to help you develop faster and deploy instantly.” Clutch.io provides an A/B testing system for developers of both iOS and Android applications. Developers employ these tests to establish whether one feature may provide better results than another feature.
“Our mission over the last few months has been to help mobile developers iterate fast and expand their user base,” co-founders Eric Florenzano and Eric Maguire wrote. “Now, as part of Twitter’s growth and international team, we are thrilled for the opportunity to focus our efforts on Twitter’s product at a large scale.”
The San Francisco-based firm Clutch.io offers so-called A/B testing of apps running on iOS, which greatly helps developers test variations of the app with users and measure the effectiveness of each modification of their mobile apps to attract more users. So, for example, a developer might use the data-driven tests such as a sign-up button that says “Register” might have a lower click-through rate than one that says “Free Sign Up”, it said on its website.
Besides, tests are conducted with certain groups of users that developers choose. The company also said that it boasts a system called “Framework” that helps developers build apps and issue updates.
However, the company did not disclose the terms of the deal, nor is it clear whether Twitter acquired the company. A Twitter spokesman said he could only confirm that the Clutch.io team has joined Twitter and it had acquired their IP.
The hosted service from Clutch.io will however not be available to its customers after Nov. 1. The micro-blogging hub is absorbing Clutch.io into its Growth and International team, including founders Eric Florenzano and Eric Maguire, who previously created now defunct Y Combinator company Convore.
“We are happy to announce that over the coming weeks we will make available everything you need to run Clutch.io on your own servers, so that even after our hosted service is no longer running, you can continue to operate it on your own,” said the co-founders in a blog post.
On the other hand, the company cautioned that the technology will otherwise “fail gracefully” if features using it are accessed by app users. Clutch.io says users will not be able to tell that a failure has occurred.
While it is busy hoarding up its techno arsenal, Clutch is the seventh acquisition Twitter has made this year, including its purchase of Summify, which provided summaries of social news feeds, and email marketer RestEngine, and may be part of a trend of large tech companies buying startups for their staff and sometimes pieces of technology.