Twitter Finally Buys TweetDeck For £25M

Twitter has acquired the popular Twitter client, TweetDeck, for approximately $40 million (£25 million) according to various media reports.

The Wall Street Journal last month reported that Twitter was close to acquiring TweetDeck for $50m (£35m), citing “people familiar with the matter’ as its source. This came on top of an earlier rumour that California-based app developer UberMedia was preparing for a £19m acquisition of the startup which is based in the East End of London.

But now it seems likely that Twitter has closed the deal as according to CNN Money, the official acquisition agreement papers were signed on Monday.

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However it should be noted that nether Tweetdeck or Twitter have so far put out an official confirmation of the deal.

Twitter’s PR account for example tweeted, “For all those who might be curious, we continue to not comment on rumours.”

But it seems likely the deal has been signed and it should reportedly make an instant millionaire out of 36-year-old TweetDeck founder and chief executive Iain Dodsworth.

The British company was launched in July 2008, and provides a third-party Twitter client that can be downloaded free-of-charge to desktop, smartphones and tablets. It allows users to update and maintain social networking accounts like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Buzz.

Last year, the company claimed its free desktop application had been downloaded over 15 million times in two years after launch, making the software five times more popular than any other products based around Twitter.

Privacy And Injunctions

Twitter itself is currently opening a London office and it has recently been in the spotlight over its role in the injunction saga in the United Kingdom.

Earlier this month a Twitter user used the microblogging website to flout British privacy laws by tweeting a list of celebrities who – it was claimed – had taken out injunctions.

And last weekend thousands of Twitter users tweeted the name of married premiership footballer Ryan Giggs.

Previously referred to as CTB, Giggs had responded to the initial leak with legal action against Twitter, demanding it reveal information on the “persons unknown regarding the publication of information on Twitter accounts”.

Putting The Boot In

Meanwhile Twitter has also succeeded in drawing the ire of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man widely credited with inventing the internet.

The scientist said he finds the social networking website “extreme” and unsophisticated. His comments came as he questioned Twitter’s policy to allow extreme views to be freely expressed regardless of their legal status in superinjunctions or possible nature as hate speech.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee uses Twitter himself and has more than 45,000 followers. Speaking at The Royal Society’s ‘New Web’ conference in London, he reportedly said…“All the tweets were extreme.”

He then asked “is Twitter going to be a part of [the future of the web]? We need something a bit more sophisticated.”

He also took issue with Twitter for limiting individual tweets to 140 characters, and he suggested that in the future all social networking platforms will talk to each other.

“Twitter isn’t designed for the middle ground. It’s not a place where you have reasoned discussion,” he said.