Twitter announced Thursday that it has agreed to takeover video-editing startup SnappyTV in a bid to offer extensive tools for TV broadcasters and others to share videos on its social network.
Twitter, the second largest social networking service, is expanding its portfolio with yet another acquisition of a startup. The micro-blogging company will now allow TV broadcasters, event producers and others to showcase snippets of their real-time high-quality content on Twitter. The acquisition of SnappyTV with its live clipping, editing and distribution capabilities will help Twitter's media partners to better share video clips on its site.
Twitter is under fire for failing to attract more members towards its service. Real-time events are crucial for the social network as users turn to Twitter to see what's trending and get engaged in on-going conversations. SnappyTV played an important role in bringing snippets of live shows shortly after being aired. The San Francisco based startup has partners such as FOX Sports, NBC Sports, CBS, HBO, and NBA to bring real-time videos clips to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Acquiring SnappyTV shows that Twitter is moving in the direction of establishing itself in the social TV media space to boost its user-base and add more ad dollars. In a statement released on its official blog, Thursday, Twitter said:
"While we continue to invest in SnappyTV's product and integrate it more tightly with Twitter, we also plan to maintain our partners' ability to post high-quality videos to other platforms. Our goal is to help publishers quickly share great moments from events so people can experience those moments as they happen."
In a separate blog post on SnappyTV's official site, the company's head of products wrote, "With Twitter we will continue our commitment to maintaining an open platform for social broadcasting of live events, across a variety of digital platforms. Joining Twitter will allow us to provide an even better product and bring the platform to more content owners and event organizers throughout the world. We will be able to further our goal of empowering people to share the world's best moments.
Twitter has been focusing on its video features to attract more media companies, to interact with users in real-time. The micro-blogging site added messaging feature to its Vine video app. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
