Thaindian News

SAN FRANCISCO (BNO NEWS) — The social networking website Twitter on Wednesday confirmed it has acquired TweetDeck, a popular desktop application that enables users to read messages and post updates to Twitter.

The confirmation of the deal ends months of speculation about advanced acquisition talks between the two companies. Details about the acquisition were not released.

“This acquisition is an important step forward for us. TweetDeck provides brands, publishers, marketers and others with a powerful platform to track all the real-time conversations they care about,” said Twitter CEO Dick Costolo. “In order to support this important constituency, we will continue to invest in the TweetDeck that users know and love.”

TweetDeck CEO Iain Dodsworth said the deal with Twitter was completed on Tuesday. “I am extremely happy and proud to let you know that TweetDeck has been acquired by Twitter,” he wrote in a blog post.

Dodsworth described the past three years since TweetDeck was founded as an “epic journey” with many highs and lows, accompanied by “the constant thrill of never really knowing what to expect next.”

“We’ve grown from one team member and a single user, to a team of fifteen and a user-base of millions. The reason for this growth is simple - our unwavering focus on providing high-quality tools and services for the Twitter-centric power-user,” Dodsworth said. “This has always been our core audience - the most active, influential and valuable users of Twitter and social media in general. Quality over quantity.”

But not everyone welcomed the deal, and some Twitter users feared TweetDeck would suffer under the management of Twitter. “Change may well be inevitable, but we remain the same team, staying in London, with the same focus and products, and now with the support and resources to allow us to grow and take on even bigger challenges,” Dodsworth said.

While neither Twitter nor TweetDeck would confirm details of the acquisition, CNN cited sources on Monday that the deal to acquire TweetDeck was for more than $40 million in cash and stock. Other reports put the figure as high as $50 million.

Since its release in 2008, more than 20 million people have downloaded TweetDeck, which is free and most recently began to support other social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. But the application remains most popular with users of Twitter.