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Twitter Acquires Gnip

129 points by noinput 12y ago

willu 12y ago
Interesting, I had gotten the impression Twitter was aligning itself more with DataSift in recent years. I used Gnip a few years ago and thought it was a great service, although the high price point drove us to ultimately roll our own.
- mynameisasdf 12y ago
  By "roll our own" do you mean you just used the twitter streaming API? Did that have enough data?
  - techpeace 12y ago
    I had the same question when I read this. The streaming API is only a fraction of the data offered by the firehose, but that's not as much of a problem in every use case.
  - willu 12y ago
    Yes, Twitter streaming API plus several other data sources (Facebook, Reddit, forums, etc.). It's enough for us since we're always filtering by keywords or users. We were also granted elevated access.
    - nathancahill 12y ago
      What was the process like for elevated access? I'm deciding between using Gnip or Twitter's streaming API today actually.
      - willu 12y ago
        It was pretty straightforward in our case. We had to show them that we had use cases that weren't feasible with the default access level and also demonstrate that we weren't competing with their user experience at all. Not sure how much it mattered but we had been using their streaming API for almost as long as it existed.
joeblau 12y ago
Congrats to those guys. I worked with their service for about a year and they had a great product.
dalek2point3 12y ago
does this mean that they will no longer sell non-twitter data like Foursquare?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
AznHisoka 12y ago
So Twitter basically acquired their own data? Hmm.. more proof I dun know how Silicon Valley works.
- waterside81 12y ago
  I'm a customer of Gnip's - they provider several enrichments and data normalizations on top of Twitter's stream. Could Twitter have hired X engineers and duplicated what Gnip does? Perhaps - but Gnip also has an existing customer base, existing revenue flow, infrastructure setup to handle customers creating their own matching rules etc. There's more to Gnip than just re-selling the Twitter firehose.
  - thefreeman 12y ago
    Gnip also integrates with a number of other services as well
    - fvryan 12y ago
      Will these sites want Twitter to have firehose access to their data? For example Tumblr, Foursquare, Wordpress? They also offer Facebook data, but it is a managed public API connection.
      - thefreeman 12y ago
        It's a very good question. I really have no idea what the implications are and probably depend on each company.
- metajack 12y ago
  Or buying their way out of the data contract Gnip has?
- mbesto 12y ago
  I'll try to simplify it as much as possible. Capital is raised by companies to accelerate growth. Growth acceleration can manifest itself in many ways. Specifically, in this case, as you rightfully point out, Twitter could easily build this service themselves. They also, at the time of Gnip's inception weren't totally sure there was a business model here.* So they let another organization take that risk for them, instead of using their own capital. They end up paying more capital in the long run but the risk is reduced. *I recognize that most likely the certainty of Gnip's business model is (1) much higher due to the "duh, of course people want this" nature of their business and (2) that the people investing here are all "in this together". It, however, doesn't negate the fact that there is indeed risk.
MCarusi 12y ago
Congrats!
pincubator 12y ago
I guess that makes Twitter data cheaper than before? Last time when I contacted them for one week of worth tweets (with some filters on top) they wanted me to pay tens of thousands dollars. I ended up crawling the data myself.
- brianbreslin 12y ago
  were you able to get firehose access for that? or were you just spidering the public tweet stream?
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    Most likely spidering; its difficult/expensive to get firehose access.
  - pincubator 12y ago
    no, i just used streaming api to gather the data. you can crawl surprisingly more data with streaming api as opposed to regular api.
PanMan 12y ago
Interesting: It seems twitter now does see distributing their data as a valid businessmodel (before they 'outsourced' this to DataSift and Gnip). Wonder what it will mean for the other sources Gnip has, and for the customers of Datasift.
thevaibhav 12y ago
I've often wondered if there's any hidden terminology in some of these press release, eg: "http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/15/twitter-buys-gnip-taking-ownership-of-the-top-source-of-twitter-data/" http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/15/twitter-buys-gnip-taking-o... "To that end, we have agreed to acquire Gnip" - I'm wondering for example if the "agreed to acquire Gnip" means that Twitter doesn't see this as a high-value acquisition on the same level as Crashlytics or Mopub.
- nacs 12y ago
  I found that phrasing weird in the blog as well: "Today I’m pleased to announce that Twitter has agreed to acquire Gnip". Makes it sound like they almost forced the acquisition on Twitter. I'm not sure that Gnip is a 'high value acquisition' for Twitter though - AFAIK they're basically just re-streaming Twitter fire hose data which Twitter could do themselves. This is probably just a way for Twitter to lock down/get even more control over their ecosystem.
  - spullara 12y ago
    The wording is generally used because the transaction has been agreed t though it may not have been completed officially / legally.
- nostromo 12y ago
  "we’ve agreed to acquire MoPub" https://blog.twitter.com/2013/driving-mobile-advertising-forward-welcoming-mopub-to-the-flock https://blog.twitter.com/2013/driving-mobile-advertising-for...
- samstave 12y ago
  Maybe that language indicates who has the leverage in the deal and thus reflects in their stock price - post-buy. It would be interesting analizing the phrases surrounding acquisitions both public and private may reveal this...
mark_l_watson 12y ago
Sorry, off topic, but: Question: is Twitter's free "garden hose" sampled data stream still available? I used to use the small garden hose sample of near real time tweets. I just tried running an old script to fetch the garden hose and it didn't work. On topic: I thought that the Gnip business model was interesting, and I can't help but think that the other data sources that Gnip processes and resells may not like this aquisition.
- Ianvdl 12y ago
  Yes it is. The API changed and now requires authentication, so that might be why your script wasn't working.
  - dfgonzalez 12y ago
    Are you sure the Garden Hose has free access? I can't find any public access to it in the docs, everything directs me to their "data partners", which charge for this information.
    - Ianvdl 12y ago
      I'm assuming you and the OP are referring to the Streaming API? More info here: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/streaming https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/streaming
Avishai_Bitton 12y ago
Mazal Tov, but this isn't the game changer I was hopping for (:
elwell 12y ago
I wonder what this will mean for Gnip's biggest competitor, DataSift.
- elwell 12y ago
  http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/15/datasift-there-is-no-change-to-our-relationship-with-twitter-after-gnip-acquisition/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/15/datasift-there-is-no-change...
pavel_lishin 12y ago
Either Ghostery or AdBlock prevent the actual content of the blog post from loading. Please don't rely on Javascript to load content like that.
- jstalin 12y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted but I logged in to same the same thing. This blog is blank to me.
  - robryan 12y ago
    He is being downvoted because it is crazy to expect websites to work around the bugs in various 3rd party plugins. This is an issue for the plugins to fix.
    - pavel_lishin 12y ago
      I would argue that relying on Javascript to display what ought to be a simple static site is the problem here, but I also agree that perhaps the plugins ought to recognize what's going on and allow that JS to run.
Xorlev 12y ago
Best of luck to the Gnip guys -- they're a great group of people.
pauldunstone 12y ago
Not surprising to see Twitter finally acquire Gnip after working with them for four years. A great achievement for the team at Gnip, and will be interesting to watch the data model they intend on developing with Gnip as time goes on.

129 points by noinput 12y ago

willu 12y ago

Interesting, I had gotten the impression Twitter was aligning itself more with DataSift in recent years. I used Gnip a few years ago and thought it was a great service, although the high price point drove us to ultimately roll our own.

mynameisasdf 12y ago
By "roll our own" do you mean you just used the twitter streaming API? Did that have enough data?
- techpeace 12y ago
  I had the same question when I read this. The streaming API is only a fraction of the data offered by the firehose, but that's not as much of a problem in every use case.
- willu 12y ago
  Yes, Twitter streaming API plus several other data sources (Facebook, Reddit, forums, etc.). It's enough for us since we're always filtering by keywords or users. We were also granted elevated access.
  - nathancahill 12y ago
    What was the process like for elevated access? I'm deciding between using Gnip or Twitter's streaming API today actually.
    - willu 12y ago
      It was pretty straightforward in our case. We had to show them that we had use cases that weren't feasible with the default access level and also demonstrate that we weren't competing with their user experience at all. Not sure how much it mattered but we had been using their streaming API for almost as long as it existed.

joeblau 12y ago

Congrats to those guys. I worked with their service for about a year and they had a great product.

dalek2point3 12y ago

does this mean that they will no longer sell non-twitter data like Foursquare?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

AznHisoka 12y ago

So Twitter basically acquired their own data? Hmm.. more proof I dun know how Silicon Valley works.

waterside81 12y ago
I'm a customer of Gnip's - they provider several enrichments and data normalizations on top of Twitter's stream. Could Twitter have hired X engineers and duplicated what Gnip does? Perhaps - but Gnip also has an existing customer base, existing revenue flow, infrastructure setup to handle customers creating their own matching rules etc. There's more to Gnip than just re-selling the Twitter firehose.
- thefreeman 12y ago
  Gnip also integrates with a number of other services as well
  - fvryan 12y ago
    Will these sites want Twitter to have firehose access to their data? For example Tumblr, Foursquare, Wordpress? They also offer Facebook data, but it is a managed public API connection.
    - thefreeman 12y ago
      It's a very good question. I really have no idea what the implications are and probably depend on each company.
metajack 12y ago
Or buying their way out of the data contract Gnip has?
mbesto 12y ago
I'll try to simplify it as much as possible. Capital is raised by companies to accelerate growth. Growth acceleration can manifest itself in many ways. Specifically, in this case, as you rightfully point out, Twitter could easily build this service themselves. They also, at the time of Gnip's inception weren't totally sure there was a business model here.* So they let another organization take that risk for them, instead of using their own capital. They end up paying more capital in the long run but the risk is reduced. *I recognize that most likely the certainty of Gnip's business model is (1) much higher due to the "duh, of course people want this" nature of their business and (2) that the people investing here are all "in this together". It, however, doesn't negate the fact that there is indeed risk.

MCarusi 12y ago

Congrats!

pincubator 12y ago

I guess that makes Twitter data cheaper than before? Last time when I contacted them for one week of worth tweets (with some filters on top) they wanted me to pay tens of thousands dollars. I ended up crawling the data myself.

brianbreslin 12y ago
were you able to get firehose access for that? or were you just spidering the public tweet stream?
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  Most likely spidering; its difficult/expensive to get firehose access.
- pincubator 12y ago
  no, i just used streaming api to gather the data. you can crawl surprisingly more data with streaming api as opposed to regular api.

PanMan 12y ago

Interesting: It seems twitter now does see distributing their data as a valid businessmodel (before they 'outsourced' this to DataSift and Gnip). Wonder what it will mean for the other sources Gnip has, and for the customers of Datasift.

thevaibhav 12y ago

I've often wondered if there's any hidden terminology in some of these press release, eg: "http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/15/twitter-buys-gnip-taking-ownership-of-the-top-source-of-twitter-data/" http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/15/twitter-buys-gnip-taking-o... "To that end, we have agreed to acquire Gnip" - I'm wondering for example if the "agreed to acquire Gnip" means that Twitter doesn't see this as a high-value acquisition on the same level as Crashlytics or Mopub.

nacs 12y ago
I found that phrasing weird in the blog as well: "Today I’m pleased to announce that Twitter has agreed to acquire Gnip". Makes it sound like they almost forced the acquisition on Twitter. I'm not sure that Gnip is a 'high value acquisition' for Twitter though - AFAIK they're basically just re-streaming Twitter fire hose data which Twitter could do themselves. This is probably just a way for Twitter to lock down/get even more control over their ecosystem.
- spullara 12y ago
  The wording is generally used because the transaction has been agreed t though it may not have been completed officially / legally.
nostromo 12y ago
"we’ve agreed to acquire MoPub" https://blog.twitter.com/2013/driving-mobile-advertising-forward-welcoming-mopub-to-the-flock https://blog.twitter.com/2013/driving-mobile-advertising-for...
samstave 12y ago
Maybe that language indicates who has the leverage in the deal and thus reflects in their stock price - post-buy. It would be interesting analizing the phrases surrounding acquisitions both public and private may reveal this...

mark_l_watson 12y ago

Sorry, off topic, but: Question: is Twitter's free "garden hose" sampled data stream still available? I used to use the small garden hose sample of near real time tweets. I just tried running an old script to fetch the garden hose and it didn't work. On topic: I thought that the Gnip business model was interesting, and I can't help but think that the other data sources that Gnip processes and resells may not like this aquisition.

Ianvdl 12y ago
Yes it is. The API changed and now requires authentication, so that might be why your script wasn't working.
- dfgonzalez 12y ago
  Are you sure the Garden Hose has free access? I can't find any public access to it in the docs, everything directs me to their "data partners", which charge for this information.
  - Ianvdl 12y ago
    I'm assuming you and the OP are referring to the Streaming API? More info here: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/streaming https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/streaming

Avishai_Bitton 12y ago

Mazal Tov, but this isn't the game changer I was hopping for (:

elwell 12y ago

I wonder what this will mean for Gnip's biggest competitor, DataSift.

elwell 12y ago
http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/15/datasift-there-is-no-change-to-our-relationship-with-twitter-after-gnip-acquisition/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/15/datasift-there-is-no-change...

pavel_lishin 12y ago

Either Ghostery or AdBlock prevent the actual content of the blog post from loading. Please don't rely on Javascript to load content like that.

jstalin 12y ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted but I logged in to same the same thing. This blog is blank to me.
- robryan 12y ago
  He is being downvoted because it is crazy to expect websites to work around the bugs in various 3rd party plugins. This is an issue for the plugins to fix.
  - pavel_lishin 12y ago
    I would argue that relying on Javascript to display what ought to be a simple static site is the problem here, but I also agree that perhaps the plugins ought to recognize what's going on and allow that JS to run.

Xorlev 12y ago

Best of luck to the Gnip guys -- they're a great group of people.

pauldunstone 12y ago

Not surprising to see Twitter finally acquire Gnip after working with them for four years. A great achievement for the team at Gnip, and will be interesting to watch the data model they intend on developing with Gnip as time goes on.