Poisoned chalice?
The acquisition of TweetDeck by Twitter is being reported as a done deal by CNN Money. This would give Twitter control of probably its most popular third party client.
The fate of UK company TweetDeck, which was formed in 2008, has been speculated about for some time, with the sub-plot being control and subsequent monetisation of Twitter traffic. If Twitter is to ever be profitable it needs to have control over the interface through which end-users use its platform. These days people increasingly use desktop or mobile clients rather than twitter.com.
There have been past controversies about twitter restricting access to the platform for third parties, but the genie appears to be out of the bottle on that one. So Twitter has the choice of trying to do deals with third party clients or try to ensure the majority of people access twitter via software it owns.
A company called Ubermedia has been acquiring Twitter clients, and was reportedly close to getting TweetDeck earlier this year. But this deal fell through for whatever reason and it's generally thought that Twitter has stepped in as primarily a defensive measure - to prevent any third party having too much influence over the platform.
The reported acquisition is for a sum of $40 million - a hefty premium on the reported price Ubermedia was going to pay, of $30 million, but at the lower end of a price range reported at the start of this month. So far there's still no official confirmation from either party that we're aware of.
It will be interesting to see what Twitter does with TweetDeck. It's a relatively mature, stable client, with many loyal users, who won't be happy if Twitter starts mucking about with it too much. Our guess is that it will be rebranded to some extent, but mostly be left alone. Twitter already owns an iOS-specific client, so maybe TweetDeck will be positioned as an Android/Windows specific product.
There is one potential intriguing twist to this acquisition, however. Everyone will be aware of the furore over super injunctions and a certain footballer who we still won't name on the site, just in case. He has taken legal action against Twitter, but one of the reasons it's considered futile is that Twitter is US-based. Will the acquisition of TweetDeck give Twitter a UK presence for these litigation-happy celebs to attack?
