LOS ANGELES — Twitter has bought TweetDeck, the two
companies officially announced Wednesday after more than a month of
speculation.
“We completed the deal on Tuesday and are now in the
process of ‘joining the flock,’ ” said Iain Dodsworth, TweetDeck’s chief
executive and founder, in a statement announcing the deal.
“We’ve grown from one team member and a single user,
to a team of 15 and a user-base of millions. The reason for this growth
is simple — our unwavering focus on providing high-quality tools and
services for the Twitter-centric power-user.”
Twitter’s mainstream users are taken care of with
Twitter.com and Twitter’s official mobile apps, Dodsworth said. “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,’ ” he said.
Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief executive, wrote in a
post on the San Francisco-based company’s blog that buying TweetDeck is
“an important step forward for us.”
“TweetDeck provides brands, publishers, marketers and
others with a powerful platform to track all the real-time
conversations they care about,” Costolo said. “In order to support this
important constituency, we will continue to invest in the TweetDeck that
users know and love.
“TweetDeck is a great example of a third-party
developer that designed tools for the incredibly important audience of
Twitter power-users and, in turn, created value for the network as a
whole.”
Neither Costolo or Dodsworth said how much Twitter
paid to buy TweetDeck and that “value for the network,” but previous
reports over the last month have said the deal was rumored to be worth
about $40 million to $50 million.
Costolo said that there is “significant opportunity”
for app developers whose work creates a more engaged user base for
Twitter, as TweetDeck has.
But while the popular micro-blogging service is
taking over TweetDeck, the power-user app maker won’t be moving to the
San Francisco Bay Area anytime soon, Dodsworth said.
“Change may well be inevitable, but we remain the
same team, staying in London, with the same focus and products, and now
with the support and resources to allow us to grow and take on even
bigger challenges,” he said.
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