Twitter has agreed to acquire Gnip, a provider of social data and a long-standing Twitter data partner. As Twitter has grown into a platform that delivers more than 500 million Tweets per day, Gnip has played a crucial role in collecting and digesting its public data and delivering the most essential Tweets to partners, said Jana Messerschmidt, Twitter VP, Global Business Development & Platform, in a blog announcing the acquisition. "We want to make our data even more accessible, and the best way to do that is to work directly with our customers to get a better understanding of their needs," noted Messerschmidt.
Gnip, which was founded in Boulder, Colorado, in 2008, was Twitter’s first data partner. Additional Gnip data partners include Tumblr, WordPress, Foursquare, Disqus, IntenseDebate, StockTwits, and GetGlue.
“We believe Gnip has only begun to scratch the surface. Together we plan to offer more sophisticated data sets and better data enrichments, so that even more developers and businesses big and small around the world can drive innovation using the unique content that is shared on Twitter. We will continue making our data available to Gnip’s growing customer base. And with the help of Gnip’s Boulder-based team, we will be extending our data platform — through Gnip and our existing public APIs — even further,” said Messerschmidt.