Twitter has confirmed that it has acquired the social TV analytics company Bluefin Labs. Founded in 2008, Bluefin Labs offers analysis of social chatter, by tracking how users are talking about brands and TV shows on Twitter.
Although an exact price is unknown, it is rumoured to be Twitter's biggest acquisition with AllThingsD reporting a sale price of $90m (£58m). This would put the deal ahead of the $40m it paid for TweetDeck in May 2011.
Writing on a blogpost, Ali Rowghani, the chief operating officer of Twitter, said "We believe that Bluefin's data science capabilities and social TV expertise will help us create innovative new ad products and consumer experiences in the exciting intersection of Twitter and TV."
Here, three industry figures share what they think are the implications of this deal for advertisers and brands.
Tom Bedecarré, chairman, AKQA
"Twitter buying Bluefin Labs would make perfect sense. Twitter has a stranglehold on real-time conversations about TV programmes, so Twitter could use a social analytics platform like Bluefin Labs to demonstrate to advertisers how Twitter delivers ROI. Our clients want to better understand how social media supports traditional media (such as television) to create added value in their marketing campaigns."
Adam Lawrenson, creative director, Digit
"Twitter already listens to all of the conversations that reference all of the brands, all of the time. That aside, the value for brands is the 'context' of these discussions – the who, the when, the where, and the why.
"This merger is interesting because Twitter just got a whole lot better at the why. In a very specific area, Bluefin Labs knows exactly what influenced a particular comment. And all the many comments related to it. Which allows them to build a hugely detailed picture of the relationship between content and comment. Handy for brands.
"And handy for Twitter, too, not least because they'll now have sophisticated data on conversations outside their platform, but also because it gives them another anchor point in the real world with which to cross-reference their conversations.
"This is interesting because it gives Twitter another anchor point in the real world with which to cross-reference their conversations. And I expect that TV, although definitely the most important at the moment, won't be the last. Because the more Twitter knows about what people have seen, done and bought in the real world prior to saying whatever it is that they say, the more sophisticated they become at helping brands influence the conversation and, crucially, the more successful they are at charging them for doing so."
Ron Schott, head, Spring Creek Group, MAP UK
"Now that Twitter has the analytics side essentially in-house, they'll better be able to feed meaningful data into their partnership with Nielsen and that will completely change the TV rating game.
"Social TV, with all the apps and dedicated experiences out there, is still largely happening on Twitter. According to a number of studies, nearly 80% of smartphone and tablet owners use them while watching TV – that's an incredible number. When you factor in that nearly half of those people are also using social networks (and most of them Twitter), you begin to see the connection between the 140-character network and television content.
"For an advertiser, this is opening up a huge opportunity – for digital, TV, and social. Brands will be able to more accurately look at the connection between TV content, their customers, and the brand. It's going to change the model for how brands and consumers interact with the conversations around TV content and experiences. It's now about real-time engagement and interaction – not broadcasted messaging.
"If Twitter can use BlueFin to contextually analyse conversation on Twitter, it could likely target ad content to users based on a viewer profile similar to addressable TV or the likes."
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