The next time you mosey on over to TweetDeck, this message will greet you: “TweetDeck is now part of Twitter.” That’s because the fifteen workers comprising the London startup TweetDeck are now officially bound for Twitter’s payroll; Twitter is said to have paid $40 million or $50 million for them and their company. The application and service TweetDeck’s team created will continue to exist though some new features, more warmly embracing of the Twitter brand, will surely be added soon. The reports on the deal are also saying that TweetDeck will keep its London base.
Because the application does such a fine job of helping one keep track of Twitter posts, whether those authored by an account holder or by people followed, TweetDeck is especially popular among those deemed “Twitter power-users.” (A.k.a. people who tweet a lot.)
Iain Dodsworth, founder and CEO of TweetDeck, posted the following on a blog: “The mainstream Twitter user-base is well catered for by twitter.com and the official mobile clients … by becoming part of the official platform, TweetDeck will now fill that role for brands, influencers, the highly active and anyone that just needs `more power.'”
TweetDeck was founded in 2008 and has built a strong following among loyal users. With the buy, Twitter’s employee tally now stands at 505 workers.
Read more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/05/25/national/a092201D35.DTL#ixzz1NPDGbnAD
