Why did Twhirl get bought?
Date Published: April 4th, 2008
Earlier today Twhirl (related article) an Adobe Air application by Marco Kaiser (this bio link may or may not be him - unconfirmed)was purchased by Seesmic a young startup out of US.The announcement from what I can tell originated from Loic’s - founder of Seesmic - personal blog. He actually writes a very long blog post explaining the decision to purchase Twhirl.Let me summarise with a quote that really defines the business reasoning behind this ‘purchase’ although an actual amount has not been disclosed.
Marco Kaiser is super cool and it is all about people
Now I know writing this post is like a death warrant because I have noticed a trend where those who speak out opposing Loic have found themselves (not literally of course) under a bus but I seriously question the business sense of this purchase.Was there any common sense in this decision? I would really like to know your thoughts and possibly your help in understanding the value of this aquisition.*Important and maybe noteworthy for some, this news made it to TechCrunch even though it was hardly a big event, had nothing significant to say about the situation and they did not even bother to mention that Michael Arrington is one of the Series A VCs.
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This deal doesn't make much sense other than getting Seesmic into the Twitter ecosystem. That said, I think Thwirl has a lot more promise than Seesmic, which despite all the buzz, doesn't seem to be hitting it.
Hi Mark
I would be interested to know what long-term value Twhirl has? Where do you see it going?
Also Seesmic already publishes directly to Twitter so in a sense they are part of the eco-system but fair enough not nearly as much as Twhirl.
Would love to hear more of thoughts Mark.
It seems like it's a good marketing approach. Seesmic is now pushed under the users of Twihrl. Twitter inadvertantly had this happen where 'post to twitter' became some random, yet default feature added into a ton of apps. No one did that for Jaiku or Pownce. Why not? Why not have the endless list of flair (or is it too early for the 'post to delicious digg reddit magnolia larry curly moe' feature line installed in apps?)
I think it's acquisition-as-marketing strategy in part. Kinda like how 'beta' doesn't mean 'part of software release cycle'. Beta = buzz :)
I think Eric it is probable what you are saying but Twitter is the channel and Seesmic is the channel so are you supposing that Twhirl will have an update added to it that allows users to utilise Seesmic too?
That sounds again I say probable but very poor business acumen I think and a lot of work for a dubious gain.
Yeah well I'm cynical as hell. Web 2.0 and all.
Eric, you should claim your old comments, you know Disqus allows you to do that very simply. I am assuming of course you are the same Eric Rice but hey what are the odds