Twitter Buys an Analytics Company

Twitter on Thursday announced that it had acquired Smallthought Systems, the company behind an analytics service called Trendly that tracks real-time changes and user trends for Web site owners.

The announcement, which was posted on Twitter's company blog, explained that as Twitter had grown to handle millions of message updates a day, analytics had become "an increasingly crucial part of improving our service."

Twitter's goal in acquiring Trendly will be to track users and their message updates as the site continues to grow.

The Smallthought staff will help to build new products that could offer tools for companies that Twitter partners with in the future. Twitter recently started to integrate advertising into its search results and is experimenting with other revenue streams.

Twitter needs analytics to keep tabs on the tremendous amount of information flowing through its service. According to Dick Costello, Twitter's chief operating officer, the company now processes more than 65 million updates daily from its 190 million users.

Read more.