4 ms·
Twitter in Talks to Buy TweetDeck
- ayb 15y agoAnother nail in the coffin for client app developers!
- answerly 15y agoIt seems strange that this article doesn't reference the reported acquisition of TweetDeck by Uber Media back in February. http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/11/ubermedia-tweetdeck/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/11/ubermedia-tweetdeck/ EDIT: Thanks for the info/links. This report certainly makes a lot more sense given that the Uber Media deal never actually closed.
- dacort 15y agoThat acquisition didn't actually happen. It was just rumored and TC never updated their article.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- calvin 15y agoThat's useful to know, I assumed it was a done deal. CrunchBase stills shows that article as the most recent info.
- m4tt 15y agoIt was chased up but Dodsworth stayed quiet on the subject: http://thenextweb.com/uk/2011/03/30/tweetdeck-still-wont-confirm-that-uber-media-acquisition-talk/ http://thenextweb.com/uk/2011/03/30/tweetdeck-still-wont-con...
- ashbrahma 15y agoLooks like Twitter is a little worried about Ubermedia acquiring Tweetdeck and creating an alternate micro-blogging site..
- dotBen 15y agoYes, I agree. I wouldn't be surprised if they acquired Tweetdeck with the view to staff up a London office and close out Ubermedia, and in the process mothballed Tweetdeck itself.
- oldstrangers 15y agoPlease god no. I'm going to have dickbars all over my desktop now.
- olivercameron 15y agoIf this should happen, it feels like it'd be a desperate move. TweetDeck goes completely against the aesthetics and principals Twitter uses in it's various clients, so I assume it'd be purely for the users.
- rokhayakebe 15y agoYou mean their "own" users?
- city41 15y agoTweetDeck is the one twitter client (at least, that I know of) that makes Twitter useful. The ability to have numerous columns all live updating lets you really see current trends across just about anything you want in the twittersphere. It took TweetDeck for me to finally see why Twitter was useful. I wonder if that angle has anything to do with all of this.
- dotBen 15y agoColumns is nothing original to TweetDeck - hootsuite, seesmic (desktop + web), cotweet, peoplebrowsr all have 'em.
- larrywright 15y ago>> TweetDeck goes completely against the aesthetics and principals Twitter uses in it's various clients My thoughts exactly. I've never understood why TweetDeck was so popular, as the UX is horrible. It's a clumsy non-native app that lacks the polish of Twitter's other clients. I've tried it several times, but I can't bear to use it for more than five minutes. Ultimately I don't see what Twitter would gain from this.
- tnorthcutt 15y agoI wonder if this is a talent acquisition, a product acquisition, or a user acquisition (to prevent creation of an alternate service, either by TweetDeck or Ubermedia as ashbrahma suggested[1]. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2460541 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2460541
- phillmv 15y ago... I find it hard to believe they are concerned by the tune of $50million that TweetDeck would create a viable competing service. That said, I find it hard to believe TweetDeck is worth anywhere near $50million. Based on what revenues and how?
- brianbreslin 15y agoTo me this is probably for the following reasons: 1. Talent acquisition (15 employees) 2. Build this up into a pro premium set of tools 3. Much less than $50m frankly I think tweet deck can't be generating more than $2-3m in revenue. I'd bet 15-20m is the price.
- teyc 15y agoIf Tweetdeck is mostly contractors, I hope we don't see another HuffPost syndrome where people walk off because they saw things as being unfair.
- ideafreak 15y agoLikely good news for the Hootsuite crew.
- brianbreslin 15y agoBecause less competition or means someone else will buy them? If tweet deck gets acquired it wouldn't surprise me to see hoot suite in talks with ubermedia
- benatkin 15y agoAnother thing about TweetDeck that might be interesting to other HNers: Max Howell, the creator of Homebrew, works for them. http://www.methylblue.com/ http://www.methylblue.com/
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- toddh 15y agoIsn't a good way to reduce acquisition costs to devalue potential acquisitions by threatening to destroy their business model?
- zackattack 15y agotweetdeck kicks ass, it's the only twitter client i use except ubertwitter. but it needs an API badly...(the amazing things I would do!) I hope this acquisition goes through.
- ceejayoz 15y agoYou want an API for an application that does nothing but consume an API? Why not use the Twitter API?
- zackattack 15y agotheir UI is really good i don't want to have to spend the time to reinvent the wheel I just want to add some special search filters that require scripting
- AdamTReineke 15y agoI use Tweetdeck exclusively on PC and Android. Love it. And speaking of filters, I wish you could set global filters across all columns.
- lionhearted 15y agoInteresting negotiations considering the insanely high amount of leverage Twitter has. "That's a really nice Twitter client you've got there, it'd be a shame if anything happened to it..."
- ivankirigin 15y agotwitter's leverage is limited by structural constraints in maintaining a good developer ecosystem.
- justin 15y agoWhich they've demonstrated that they are willing to test the limits on multiple occasions recently (ubersocial, "no new clients" post, etc).
- chc 15y agoTwitter have explicitly said they don't see a lot of value in third-party client software, so that doesn't seem likely to constrain them here.
- zaidf 15y agoI'd think the law limits their leverage, too. I don't think twitter can threaten, directly or indirectly, to cripple tweetdeck in any way if the sale doesn't go through or if they sell to another party.
- ChuckMcM 15y agoI'm always suspicious when I see 'in talks' sort of articles because no acquisition discussion I've ever heard of ever had a 'feel free to share this with the press' clause, and there is a real chance that by having actual talks become public, they will fail. So one wonders, is Tweetdeck leaking this to see if someone else might come to the table? Twitter to see if the market thinks its a stupid idea? Some disgruntled employee/founder who doesn't want the deal to go through? Like I said, I get suspicious.
- nikcub 15y agoI saw a lot of these leaks behind the scenes, and received a few myself, and 90% of the time it is either lawyers or investors who leak the information
- wowamit 15y agoIt's the employee base twitter seems to be interested in. It cannot go with tweetdeck UI given it has already finalized on how it wants people to see twitter (with tweetie acquisition). Another reason can be deck.ly. That is something which twitter does not have at this point.