Twitter snaps up analytics firm Smallthought Systems

Twitter announced its acquisition of Smallthought Systems, developer of the Trendly analytics service. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Trendly tracks real-time web service changes and user trends--writing on the Twitter Blog, Twitter analytics lead Kevin Weil calls the solution "a tool that helps websites distinguish signal from noise in their Google Analytics data." According to Weil, the Smallthought team will focus on integrating Trendly on existing Twitter tools and building new solutions for future commercial partners. Twitter presently processes about 65 million daily tweets from more than 190 million users--in mid-April, the microblogging giant introduced Promoted Tweets, an initiative featuring ads that show up when users search for keywords tied to advertiser campaigns. From there, the firm plans to insert user-relevant promotional posts into the Twitter stream based on metrics like geographic location or shared interests among followers.

The Smallthought Systems deal is the latest in a flurry of Twitter acquisitions. In April, the firm scooped up Atebits, developer of the Tweetie client for iPhone (since renamed Twitter for iPhone) as well as messaging infrastructure provider Cloudhopper. The deals have fueled concern among Twitter developer partners who fear the company will now build more applications in-house or purchase services that bolster its overall vision, in the process making third-party apps obsolete.

For more on the Twitter/Smallthought Systems deal:
- read this Twitter Blog entry

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