

Twitter Acquires Atebits, Maker of Tweetie - marcusbooster
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/twitter-acquires-atebits-maker-of-tweetie/

======
nrao123
I guess Fred Wilson (Investor in Twitter) sort of Indicated this was going to
happen...

<http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/04/the-twitter-platform.html>

"Much of the early work on the Twitter Platform has been filling holes in the
Twitter product. It is the kind of work General Computer was doing in
Cambridge in the early 80s. Some of the most popular third party services on
Twitter are like that. Mobile clients come to mind. Photo sharing services
come to mind. URL shorteners come to mind. Search comes to mind. Twitter
really should have had all of that when it launched or it should have built
those services right into the Twitter experience.

When you talk to a new user, they want to know how to post a photo to Twitter,
they want to know "what is this bit.ly thing?", they want to know how to get
Twitter on their iPhone. Names like Summize, Twitpic, Tweetie make no sense to
them. Of course, without Summize, Twitpic, and Tweetie we would not have the
Twitter we have today. They and many other third party products and services
filled out the holes in the Twitter product and made it work better."

------
tdm911
what will this mean for other twitter app developers? twitter will be
competing head on with them and presumably be able to implement new features
quicker and easier.

~~~
shib71
It could go either way: because Twitter are now eating their own dogfood (i.e.
the Twitter API) perhaps that API will improve. Alternately they may instead
be tempted to start creating internal-only APIs.

~~~
abraham
Twitter has been eating their own dogfood with <http://mobile.twitter.com>

------
niekmaas
Well, this is something like the famous saying "if you can't beat them, join
them!" In this case "lost the edge, offer a big pile of cash and acquire
them".

I think its a logic business move for Twitter. There is no point for them to
spend the time and energy into an app that might take a reasonable part of the
iPhone market. This way their investment immediatly gives them a huge part of
the market.

------
jseifer
Congratulations to the Tweetie developer! Official Twitter blog post here:
<http://blog.twitter.com/2010/04/twitter-for-iphone.html>

------
swilliams
Whoa. Probably a smart move by Twitter. Tweetie is one of the best and most
polished apps on the iPhone.

------
pstinnett
Wondering what this means for Tweetie on OS X.

~~~
timdorr
I recently made the switch to Nambu. It's not as pretty, but it's way more
functional and useful to me, particularly with the combined view.

~~~
poutine
Agreed, Nambu is way better. Tweetie on OSX is pretty feature poor, all flash
and little substance.

~~~
kes
Disagree. Tweetie is better simply because it has separate windows for each
tweet. That feature _alone_ has kept me using it.

------
iamgabeaudick
Any idea when Tweetie will be made free?

~~~
dannyr
So you are planning to wait to download Tweetie until it becomes free? To save
$2.99?

~~~
jayair
To be honest I don't see what is wrong with saving $2.99. In fact I think it
would be silly to go spend $2.99 on Tweetie when you know it is going to be
free soon.

~~~
dannyr
The developer probably doesn't need $2.99 from you but I don't mind giving
somebody a small amount for a good piece for software.

------
ErrantX
It seems a shame to be losing the name Tweetie; I think Twitter should keep it
- an established brand and a clever name, it's part of what their buying.

~~~
bradendouglass
feel this exact way. Tweetie is very close to twitter and I feel that they
could continue the brand without diluting the Twitter brand itself.

------
stevenp
If I were a betting man, I'd be looking to Twitpic next.

~~~
brandnewlow
Except that during a March 12, 2009 meeting, they discussed it and decided not
to buy it, according to the Twitter notes leaked to Techcrunch.

[http://techcrunch.com/2009/07/16/twitters-internal-
strategy-...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/07/16/twitters-internal-strategy-
laid-bare-to-be-the-pulse-of-the-planet/)

I always felt a little bad for the Twitpic guy for that.

Also, that conversation from the notes spelled out pretty clearly that Twitter
would eventually start pulling things like this.

~~~
wheels
Given that Twitpic apparently has multi-million annual revenue, I won't cry
for them _too_ long. ;-)

[http://www.businessinsider.com/twitpic-is-
doing-15-to-2-mill...](http://www.businessinsider.com/twitpic-is-
doing-15-to-2-million-in-annual-sales-2010-1)

~~~
rythie
My guess is that's going to pretty expensive to buy a company with that much
profit already and he's already turned down a $10m offer.

------
blahpro
“I’m [...] starting work on turning Tweetie.app into Twitter.app”. I bet there
are a lot of unhappy Twitter iPhone/iPad client developers today.

------
mkramlich
congrats to Loren! i love his app. a true craftsman.

------
CoachRufus87
Congratulations! Well deserved.

------
iamgabeaudick
And so it begins.

------
esornoso
Twitter + Tweetie = Tweetrouble

~~~
zackattack
Maybe Tweetrubble.

------
st3fan
Pile of gold, eh? I guess this is why Tweetie for the Mac is still so
extremely minimal. The developer got lazy because of his pile of gold. Bye bye
motivation. Money makes people lazy.

~~~
blahpro
Wh... what? Minimal applications aren't a result of laziness, they're designed
that way. One of the many reasons why, IMO, Tweetie is the best Twitter client
for OS X.

