Monday, May 2, 2011

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Twitter To Buy TweetDeck For $40 Million – $50 Million Top
Twitter has acquired TweetDeck , we’ve heard from a source with knowledge of the deal, and the transaction will be announced in the next few days. The $40 million – $50 million purchase price includes both cash and Twitter stock, says our source. In February we reported that an acquisition of TweetDeck by Bill Gross’ UberMedia was all but done , in the $25 – $30 million range. And that deal was in fact all but done. But Twitter quickly provided an unsolicited counter offer , and TweetDeck was in play again. TechCrunch EU has the full story on how that played out. This deal is defensive for Twitter, say all the sources we’ve spoken with over the last couple of months. They simply couldn’t allow UberMedia to have so much market share in this space. The company has acquired UberTwitter , EchoFon and a number of other Twitter-related startups. Adding TweetDeck to the UberMedia stable of products would give them too much leverage over Twitter, say our sources, and so Twitter made a strong defensive bid to disrupt the deal. Which succeeded nicely, apparently. CrunchBase Information TweetDeck Twitter UberMedia Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Salesforce Closes $326M Acquisition Of Social Media Monitoring Company Radian6 Top
A little over a month after announcing the $326 million acquisition of social media monitoring company Radian6, Salesforce has closed the deal. The purchase of Radian6 is Salesforce’s largest acquisition to date. Radian6 helps clients like Dell, GE, Kodak and UPS monitor, analyze and engage in 'hundreds of millions' of social media conversations. Salesforce will be using Radian6′s technology to enhance all of its products, including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Chatter and Force.com. Specifically, Salesforce says the combination will create a “bridge between public conversations and Chatter” and “enhance the Salesforce Sales and Service Cloud products with social intelligence that customers can act on. Developers building on the Force.com platform also will be able to tap into the power of Radian6, putting the social web into everything they build.” We’ve argued that Salesforce overpaid for Radian6, considering Salesforce paid nearly ten times Radian6′s revenues. Salesforce CEO and founder Marc Benioff told reporters shortly after the deal was announced that the company needed to move quickly to acquire technology (as opposed to building it in-house) as more competitors move into the world of social enterprise. Salesforce CMO Kendall Collins told us it would have taken at least three years for Salesforce to build the technology in-house. Now that Radian6 is finally part of the Salesforce family, it should be interesting to see how quickly the CRM giant can incorporate Radian6′s technology into its products. CrunchBase Information Radian6 Salesforce Information provided by CrunchBase
 
eBay Acquires Nonprofit Fundraising Tool MissionFish Top
eBay has been acquiring companies left and right recently and today is announcing the acquisition of yet another startup (this time a nonprofit)— MissionFish. MissionFish has actually been powering eBay’s Giving Works program, which allows sellers to donate items and proceeds from sales to charitable causes and enables buyers to donate to these causes. MissionFish, which is an independent nonprofit organization, screens nonprofits that want to become members, and processes the millions of dollars in donations that result through eBay Giving Works. The platform is a collaboration of the Points of Light Institute, Pew Charitable Trusts, and The Case Foundation. MissionFish has powered eBay Giving Works for the past eight years, raising almost $250 million for U.S. and UK nonprofits. The eBay community raised $54.8 million for U.S. and UK nonprofit organizations in 2010 and a donation is made every 24 seconds through eBay Giving Works, raising more than $91 every minute for nonprofits. Overall, donations were up 7 percent in 2010, compared to 2009, says the company. eBay plans to create a separate nonprofit organization that will eventually be directly responsible for the collection and distribution of funds, using MissionFish’s technology. CrunchBase Information eBay Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Bin Laden Announcement Has Highest Sustained Tweet Rate Ever, At 3440 Tweets Per Second Top
Twitter has just revised its preliminary measurements of 4,000 tweets per second from last night’s announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s death , tweeting out the new measurements below. At the event’s peak (11pm EST) there were 5,106 TPS, beating out Super Bowl 2011 (with 4,064 TPS) but not NYE 2010 (with 6,939 TPS). The event had the highest sustained rate of tweets ever according to Twitter, reaching 3,000 tweets per second between 10:45 and 2:20am, raking in 38,7 million tweets in 3 hours and 35 minutes. At its peak it averaged 3440 TPS from 10:45pm  to 12:30pm EST, at an average of 12,4 million tweets an hour. For comparison, this year’s Super Bowl had sustained 20 minutes at 3,000 TPS. From Twitter PR : “Last night saw the highest sustained rate of Tweets ever. From 10:45 – 2:20am ET, there was an average of 3,000 Tweets per second. At 11p.m. ET, there were 5,106 Tweets per second. At 11:45p.m. ET, when Pres. Obama finished his remarks, there were 5,008 TPS. Note: The TPS numbers we reported last night were incomplete” The timeline of the event on Twitter was as follows: At 1:00pm EST last night, Sohaib Athar (@reallyvirtual) unknowingly  liveblogged the helicopter raids that eventually killed Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. At around 9:45pm EST White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer notified the press corps that Obama would make an impromptu announcement at 10:30 EST, then tweeted out the same information to his followers. At 10:25pm former Donald Rumsfeld Chief Of Staff Keith Urbahn tweeted,  "So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn."  ABC, NBC and CBS then followed suit, announcing the death of Bin Laden on television at 10:45pm EST. Obama’s speech began at 11:30pm EST and by 11:35 EST the President had confirmed Osama’s death. At 11:45pm EST the announcement was over. For perspective, here is a list of other notable TPS event records: * The all-time record is still NYE 2010 in Japan, with 6,939 TPS at its peak * On the day of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami (On March 11th) Twitter usage reached 5,530 TPS. (Passing the 5,000 TPS mark five times that day). * The 2011 Super Bowl reached 4,064 TPS * Japan’s victory over Denmark in the World Cup reached 3,283 TPS * Final game of the 2010 NBA finals peaked at 3,085 TPS * Last Friday's Royal Wedding reached a peak of 3,966 TPS at 4pm London time @twitterglobalpr Twitter Comms Last night saw the highest sustained rate of Tweets ever. From 10:45 – 2:20am ET, there was an average of 3,000 Tweets per second [1/3] about 2 hours ago via web Reply Retweet Favorite @twitterglobalpr Twitter Comms At 11p.m. ET, there were 5,106 Tweets per second. At 11:45p.m. ET, when Pres. Obama finished his remarks, there were 5,008 TPS [2/3] about 2 hours ago via web Reply Retweet Favorite @twitterglobalpr Twitter Comms Note: The TPS numbers we reported last night were incomplete [3/3] about 2 hours ago via web Reply Retweet Favorite Graph: @miguelrios CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Twitter Does Not Supplant Other Media, It Amplifies It Top
Last night, many of us learned about Osama Bin Laden’s death on Twitter . And in fact, the first credible report from Keith Urbahn, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s chief of staff, was also on Twitter. And while the White House kept pushing off the official announcement for an hour to inform different parties, the news was already being analyzed and spread on Twitter. So did Twitter supplant mainstream media as the best source of news about Bin Laden’s death? Yes and no. Yes, many people first heard about the news on Twitter, but more often than not the original source of that news could be traced back to mainstream media. Although some unwitting on-the-ground reporting occurred on Twitter as well, Bin Laden’s death was confirmed by mainstream media (CNN, NYT, etc). Even Keith Urbahn notes that his source was not someone in the military or government, but a “connected TV news producer:” @keithurbahn Keith Urbahn My source was a connected network TV news producer. Stories about "the death of MSM" because of my "first" tweet are greatly exaggerated. about 11 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Reply Retweet Favorite Urbahn doesn’t believe his Tweet is evidence of citizen journalism “supplanting traditional media.” @keithurbahn Keith Urbahn As much as I believe in rise of "citizen journalism," blogs, twitter etc supplanting traditional media, my tweet isn't great evidence of it. about 11 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Reply Retweet Favorite And yet, he was able to break the news before the TV producer who told him could air it on traditional media. Twitter is not in and of itself a news source. Whoever is Tweeting is the source. But all it takes is one person to Tweet out news for it to spread faster than through any other medium. The person doesn’t have to be a journalist. Urbahn scooped everyone. Twitter does not supplant other media, it amplifies it. During the President’s announcement, people were Tweeting at a rate of 4,000 Tweets per second , not an all-time-high, but a close second or third—about the same level of Tweets as during the last Super Bowl . Twitter also drives people to traditional media. Last night, news that the President was going to make a surprise announcement certainly drove people to TV. For instance, I first heard about the news conference on Twitter, and then I turned on CNN. Much of what people were Tweeting was what they were hearing on TV, thus passing the news instantly to people who may not have been in front of a TV at the time. But what that means in practice is that if you are following the right people, you don’t have to actually turn on your TV. You can learn most of the salient facts from watching your Twitter stream. It can be such an efficient way to get information that people mistake it for the source of the news itself. For an increasing number of people, it is becoming the first place they turn to find out what is going on. However, it also points to other media (much like a news search does) and people click on those links to find out more. We certainly saw a huge spike from Twitter traffic here on TechCrunch last night, and we are just a technology blog. Related TC posts : First Credible Reports Of Bin Laden's Death Spread Like Wildfire On Twitter Here's the guy who unwittingly live-tweeted the raid on Bin Laden Bin Laden's Compound Gets A Bum Review On Google Maps CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase
 
First Credible Reports Of Bin Laden's Death Spread Like Wildfire On Twitter Top
@keithurbahn Keith Urbahn So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn. about 19 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Reply Retweet Favorite If the Twitterverse is to be believed, President Obama is about to announce the death of terrorist and 9-11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden, in an impromptu announcement broadcast on  Whitehouse.gov  and TV this Sunday night at 10:45 EST. The news actually hit Twitter before the President’s broadcast; CNN’s Steve Brusk first  tweeted that the briefing was National Security-related at around 7:25pm PST. The first credible sign of the imminent announcement of Bin Ladin’s death came from Keith Urbahn, the Chief of Staff for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who  tweeted   “I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden .” CBS news producer Jill Scott then confirmed the rumor shortly afterward  with “House Intelligence committee aide confirms that Osama Bin Laden is dead. U.S. has the body.” Both Urbahn and Scott’s tweets were re-tweeted hundreds of times and Twitter itself experienced traffic spikes of 4,000 tweets per second (The NYT’s  Brian Stelter has a more detailed account of how the news broke here ). The President’s monumental news comes poignantly enough on the 8th anniversary of George Bush’s “Mission Accomplished”  ceremony. Well it looks like the mission was finally accomplished. Unsurprisingly, “Osama Bin Laden” is now a Twitter trending topic. What’s amazing is that the news is already out before the President has even spoken. Update: The White House keeps pushing back the announcement, but CNN and the New York Times have just confirmed that Bin Laden was killed, with CNN adding the detail that the event took place in a mansion outside of Islamabad, Pakistan. Update 2: The President has confirmed that Bin Laden was killed in an operation today in the city of Abbottabad, Pakistan (not Islamabad), after a firefight executed by a small team of US Human Ops troops. Update 3: Apparently, Twitter user @ Sohaib Athar  ( @ReallyVirtual)  accidentally  live tweeted the actual Abbottabad raid. These cryptic pre-announcement tweets from wrestler/movie star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson are also interesting to note. Hmm … So what happened here? @stevebruskCNN Steve Brusk Breaking – We are told it is a national security related announcement by the President about 19 hours ago via web Reply Retweet Favorite @brianstelter Brian Stelter CBS News producer reports: RT @ jacksonjk : House Intelligence committee aide confirms that Osama Bin Laden is dead. U.S. has the body. about 18 hours ago via web Reply Retweet Favorite @jacksonjk Jill Jackson House Intelligence committee aide confirms that Osama Bin Laden is dead. U.S. has the body. about 19 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Reply Retweet Favorite @andylevy Andy Levy Fox News confirms bin Laden is dead. about 18 hours ago via web Reply Retweet Favorite @k_mancklp Kent Matheson Cnn says bin laden is dead about 18 hours ago via Twitter for
 

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