Companies that acquire startups have a funny way of treating them once they’re in the fold.
Sometimes, it’s a perfect strategic fit that creates a win-win scenario: the startup thrives within the corporate “mothership” with plenty of financing and stability, while the acquirer expands the capabilities of its business to meet the needs of existing and new customers.
In some cases, however, startups get swallowed up and pretty much disappear to the point where you wonder why it was acquired in the first place. Some examples include Yahoo’s purchase of del.icio.us. Rather than enhancing the bookmarking service, Yahoo seemed to ignore it for years. Yahoo finally sold it recently the founders of YouTube.
For Twitter users, an interesting story to watch will be Twitter’s apparent acquisition of TweetDeck. One of the hot questions is what will Twitter do with TweetDeck, the most popular third-party service to read and publish tweets, after the deal is done.
GigaOm’s Mathew Ingram makes the case that Twitter shouldn’t “pull the plug” on Twitter because it’s focused on power users, while Twitter.com is aimed at the broad market.
It makes a lot of sense given TweetDeck has far more features that Twitter.com, and meets the needs of different kinds of users. The only thing that TweetDeck that Twitter might not like is the ability to post to multiple social networks, including Facebook, Google Buzz and LinkedIn. Why make it easy for users to use the competition when a tool you own?
Of course, if Twitter did something radical such as remove the ability to use other social media services, many TweetDeck users might consider moving to Seesmic or HootSuite.
It will be interesting to see what Twitter does with TweetDeck. If an ideal world, TweetDeck is allowed to thrive.
What Will Twitter do With TweetDeck?
Companies that acquire startups have a funny way of treating them once they’re in the fold.
Sometimes, it’s a perfect strategic fit that creates a win-win scenario: the startup thrives within the corporate “mothership” with plenty of financing and stability, while the acquirer expands the capabilities of its business to meet the needs of existing and new customers.
In some cases, however, startups get swallowed up and pretty much disappear to the point where you wonder why it was acquired in the first place. Some examples include Yahoo’s purchase of del.icio.us. Rather than enhancing the bookmarking service, Yahoo seemed to ignore it for years. Yahoo finally sold it recently the founders of YouTube.
For Twitter users, an interesting story to watch will be Twitter’s apparent acquisition of TweetDeck. One of the hot questions is what will Twitter do with TweetDeck, the most popular third-party service to read and publish tweets, after the deal is done.
GigaOm’s Mathew Ingram makes the case that Twitter shouldn’t “pull the plug” on Twitter because it’s focused on power users, while Twitter.com is aimed at the broad market.
It makes a lot of sense given TweetDeck has far more features that Twitter.com, and meets the needs of different kinds of users. The only thing that TweetDeck that Twitter might not like is the ability to post to multiple social networks, including Facebook, Google Buzz and LinkedIn. Why make it easy for users to use the competition when a tool you own?
Of course, if Twitter did something radical such as remove the ability to use other social media services, many TweetDeck users might consider moving to Seesmic or HootSuite.
It will be interesting to see what Twitter does with TweetDeck. If an ideal world, TweetDeck is allowed to thrive.