
Twitter in Talks to Buy TweetDeck - bradgillespie
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704004004576271262772728114.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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ChuckMcM
I'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.

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nikcub
I 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

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answerly
It 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/>

EDIT: Thanks for the info/links. This report certainly makes a lot more sense
given that the Uber Media deal never actually closed.

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dacort
That acquisition didn't actually happen. It was just rumored and TC never
updated their article.

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calvin
That's useful to know, I assumed it was a done deal. CrunchBase stills shows
that article as the most recent info.

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olivercameron
If 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.

~~~
city41
TweetDeck 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
Columns is nothing original to TweetDeck - hootsuite, seesmic (desktop + web),
cotweet, peoplebrowsr all have 'em.

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benatkin
Another thing about TweetDeck that might be interesting to other HNers: Max
Howell, the creator of Homebrew, works for them.

<http://www.methylblue.com/>

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ashbrahma
Looks like Twitter is a little worried about Ubermedia acquiring Tweetdeck and
creating an alternate micro-blogging site..

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dotBen
Yes, 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.

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lionhearted
Interesting 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..."

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ivankirigin
twitter's leverage is limited by structural constraints in maintaining a good
developer ecosystem.

~~~
justin
Which they've demonstrated that they are willing to test the limits on
multiple occasions recently (ubersocial, "no new clients" post, etc).

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ayb
Another nail in the coffin for client app developers!

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hristov
At 50 million this is a rather nice solid gold and diamond encrusted nail.

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pclark
If owning 10% of Twitter users results in a mere $50M pay day, Twitter has
serious problems.

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tnorthcutt
I 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>

~~~
phillmv
... 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
To 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
If Tweetdeck is mostly contractors, I hope we don't see another HuffPost
syndrome where people walk off because they saw things as being unfair.

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wowamit
It'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.

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ideafreak
Likely good news for the Hootsuite crew.

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brianbreslin
Because 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

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zackattack
tweetdeck 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.

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ceejayoz
You want an API for an application that does nothing but consume an API? Why
not use the Twitter API?

~~~
zackattack
their 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

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oldstrangers
Please god no. I'm going to have dickbars all over my desktop now.

