Social TV analytics company Bluefin Labs is being acquired by micro-blogging service Twitter.
Bluefin Labs aggregates data and provides that information to advertisers, agencies, and TV networks.
The Bluefin acquisition arrives only a short time after Twitter announced its new partnership with Nielsen. At this time it is unclear how the Bluefin Labs acquisition might play into the Nielsen partnership. However, the blog post announcing the buyout says the company plans on “working closely with Nielsen, TV networks, advertisers, agencies, and the rest of the TV ecosystem to help shape the future of social TV.”
Bluefin Labs was thought up in the MIT Media Lab. The Bluefin Lab platform was originally created as an exercise in machine learning.
Workers from the company will stay in their Cambridge, MA location instead of relocating to the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco.
With Twitter currently receiving and displaying more than one billion tweets every two and a half days the company’s data collection along with Bluefin Labs use of that data should help create a strong platform for TV analytics and other future products.
Twitter is expected to pay upwards of $70 million for Bluefin Labs. The company has generated approximately $20 million income in the last four years.
Here is the full Twitter announcement for the acquisition:
“Today we’re happy to announce that we have acquired Bluefin Labs, a leading social TV analytics company that provides data products to brand advertisers, agencies, and TV networks. 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.
This acquisition reflects our commitment to the social TV market, and builds on our exclusive partnership with Nielsen announced in December to develop the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating, the centerpiece of social TV measurement based on Nielsen’s SocialGuide platform. We intend to honor existing Bluefin customer contracts, but we will not continue to sell Bluefin’s product suite beyond the existing contracts. We plan to collaborate closely with Nielsen and SocialGuide on product development and research to help brands, agencies, and networks fully understand the combined value of Twitter and TV.
As millions of people around the world experienced during Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast, Twitter is an amazing complement to live television viewing. We look forward to working with Bluefin and our partners in the television industry to make the experience of Twitter and television even better.”
0 Comments