It's official: Twitter buys TweetDeck for $40M

Popular social networking site Twitter confirmed on Wednesday (Manila time) that it has indeed acquired third-party desktop client TweetDeck, after weeks of speculation by the industry. In a blog post, the California-based company said TweetDeck has officially "joined the flock" of a growing range of official Twitter products, but did not disclose the amount of the acquisition nor the terms of the deal. An earlier report by global news organization CNN, however, hinted that the acquisition was made to the tune of $40 million. This brings the total number of Twitter employees to 505, the company said. Twitter said it intends to continue investing in "the TweetDeck that users know and love," shooting down earlier rumors that it will kill the Tweetdeck brand to transform it into an official desktop client, which it has done before for one of its mobile applications. Despite the acquisition, Facebook and Foursquare functionalities of the application will be retained, it added. The company said it intends to place TweetDeck as the application targeted for power users of the microblogging site. "The mainstream Twitter user-base is well catered for by twitter.com and the official mobile clients. And by becoming part of the official platform, TweetDeck will now fill that role for brands, influencers, the highly active and anyone that just needs 'more power'," explained Iain Dodsworth, TweetDeck founder and CEO, in a blog post. Industry spectators tag Twitter's move as a defensive stance against UberMedia, another third-party application developer, who also sought to acquire TweetDeck in February. The deal reportedly fell through, prompting Twitter to initiate talks of acquiring TweetDeck themselves in mid-April. In 2010, Twitter also acquired another third-party client, Tweetie, which spawned its official applications for the Mac desktop and the iPhone. — RSJ, GMA News