Confirmed: Twitter Has Acquired Summize
One week ago yesterday we reported that red hot microblogging service Twitter was rumored to have acquired real time sentiment search engine Summize. This morning the deal was confirmed by both companies.
Summize will now power search.twitter.com and its popular API will be folded into the Twitter API. All five Summize employees will move to San Francisco and work for Twitter. That's great news in the product development department; we should see some really exciting things come out of this deal.
Last week Om Malik wrote that Summize could help Twitter begin to develop a business model. We've long contended that data mining and sales were the ideal path to monetization of Twitter. Just as video conversation startup Seesmic tells us it's been experimenting with lightweight focus groups for big companies, any of the most effective conversation platforms online could provide this kind of intelligence for a fee.
We expect to see some things come out of this deal that can't be foreseen today.
The one thing that remains a mystery is the acquisition price. Twitter hasn't raised a huge amount of money and Summize had almost a million dollars in funds raised itself. What percentage of its coffers did Twitter just spend on all the Summize technology and five employees? It's probable that Summize investors saw their investments in Summize turn into favorable investments in Twitter, rather than a pile of cash. When one startup buys another one, though, one always has to wonder. It's usually a sign of desperation on the part of the acquired company - but that's not likely the case here.
We'll see what they can do together! Here's the Summize blog post about the deal, which is much more interesting than the relatively simple Twitter post about it. Twitter co-founder Evan Williams did an interesting interview about the deal with TechCrunch's Michael Arrington while at FOO Camp. The video was just released today and is worth a watch.
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Hmmm, can't tell if this is good or bad...Summize was always up, even when Twitter wasn't, and they politely prompted us.
Now I will just get the Fail Whale when I want to search Tweets for key words? That is technically LESS utility, not more.
...I will start working on a new Fail Whale screen, but using the Summize color pallet.
All Summize employees are moving to San Fransisco? That must be a hell of a deal. Where are they moving from?
I think this was inevitable. They go together.
I *what* Twitter's biz model? Spending money?
Posted by: Chris Baskind
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July 15, 2008 10:29 AM
I think this may be a very good thing for Twitter. Time will tell.
Posted by: Zach Landes
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July 15, 2008 10:32 AM
This makes much sense, because Summize offers great Sentiment Analysis technology.
With Summize Twitter is now a gold mine for Web Data Mining and Web Monitoring. Ford could ask Twitter, how their products do. If the people like their new car or not. Ford could pay Twitter to monitor all their products and get alarmed, if the twitter crowds talks bad about a particular auto.
Twitter + Summize is like ICQ + Nielsen//NetRatings on steroids
I will make a deeper comment on the relationship between Twitter and Summize, here, later http://konterkariert.tumblr.com/post/42355329/twitter-starts-web-data-mining-with-summize
I can't imagine Summize spent much of that $1m at all (although quite why they had /5/ people on it, I don't know, so perhaps some of it went in salaries), so the purchase would have had to take that cash horde into account.