Twitter Brings Data Back With Gnip Acquisition

Twitter's latest acquisition is Gnip, a Colorado-based start-up that has worked closely with the social network for several years.

Twitter has acquired its four-year data partner Gnip, in a move that gives the social network more control over the monetization of its content.

The Colorado-based start-up is one of the few certified partners that have full access to Twitter Firehose, an archive of public tweets since 2006, and now runs more than 500 million Tweets per day. Backed by the Firehose, Gnip analyzes Twitter data and resells the information to advertisers. The company also provides APIs that offer data from other social media channels, including Reddit, Instagram, and Tumblr.

Through this acquisition, Twitter will be able to sell access to its data directly to other businesses without the use of a middleman. It will also provide the social network with ad revenue opportunities, allowing data to be sold directly to brands around conversations that are happening on its platform.

“This is an interesting move for Twitter,” says Craig Kallin, senior vice president of business development and marketing at digital agency Primacy.

“While it’s been working with Gnip for years now, Twitter still has a limited strategy on how to monetize its growing user base. As Twitter, and many other social networks, look to grow their revenue streams and monetize their user base, companies like Gnip can provide the missing link between users and brands,” he adds.

Under the agreement, Gnip will continue to operate under its own branding. It is unclear yet if it will continue providing data access to other social media platforms as mentioned above. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

“We believe Gnip has only begun to scratch the surface,” says Jana Messerschmidt, vice president of global business development and platform for Twitter, in a blog post. “Together we plan to offer more sophisticated data sets and better data enrichments, so that even more developers and businesses big and small around the world can drive innovation using the unique content that is shared on Twitter.”

In March of this year, Twitter conducted a string of analytics acquisitions, including TV analytics firms Mesagraph and SecondSync.

Image via Shutterstock.

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