Twitter’s 7 acquisitions in 2021 show its ambition to move beyond the live feed
Twitter acquired seven startups in 2021
What startups has Twitter acquired this year?
How are these acquisitions shaping Twitter?
This year one of the prominent Twitter products that surfaced is Spaces — its Clubhouse competitor for live audio. After launching it inthe test phase last year, the company slowly opened it up for everyone.
Spaces has introduced features such as adding topics to the session, hosting ticketed sessions, and most recently, allowing users torecord sessions for later listening. This comes after Clubhouse rolled out itsown Replay featurein October. The Breaker team might have played a part in building someof these functions.
While operating independently, Revue has tried to integrate its features into Twitter. In October, it announced users can directly subscribe to newsletters from tweets on their timeline. Plus, you can show your newsletter directly on your profile, making it easier for readers to subscribe to it.
Last month, Substack hit1 million paid subscribers. Revue could also hope to achieve that with Twitter’s reach.
Madalyn Sklar,a Twitter marketing expert based in Houston said, “Revue is giving creators a different way to deliver newsletters, no matter how large their platform is or what field they’re in.”
In September, Twitter launchedCommunities— a subreddit-like feature that helps connect people sharing similar interests. Since the launch, the company has launched a few country-specific groups, such asa Cricket community for fans of the sport in India.
While there’s no existing chat feature in the community, Twitter can easily tap into Sphere’s expertise to bake in a messaging feature.
Talking of messaging, the Quill acquisition could be key to finally making Twitter DMs more useful.
Matt Navarra, a UK-based social media consultant and former TNWer, saidwe might soon see new DM-related features, aimed at individuals and enterprises:
He noted that we can see Twitter importing features from other messaging apps such as quick replies, and separation of business and personal messages.
In an interview withThe Verge, Twitter’s new CEO, Parag Agarwal, said that “The opportunity around DMs is really key.” So we can expect some changes soon.
In June, Twitter rolled out its subscription service, calledTwitter Blue, in Australia and Canada— costing $3.49 CAD or $4.49 AUD ($2.74USD). Apart from an ad-free experience, one of the key features you get with this subscription is a reader mode to go through long threads in a nice format. This is powered by… you guessed it right, Threader.
More than just a live feed
Being a live feed for information, news, and entertainment has been Twitter’s forte for a long time now. But its recent product announcements and acquisitions suggest that the company wants its users to be more engaged, rather than just scrolling through tweets.
Skalar said that Twitter’s acquisitions can bring a lot of people back to the platform:
Ed Zitron, the founder of media relations agency EZPR, thinks that Twitter wants to own “own, on some level, all forms of a live broadcast” and become the best “as it happens” social network.
Well, it’s already one of the best places to get news quickly with tweets and Periscope-powered live videos. So I can imagine it trying to attack other media spaces like audio with full force.
Notably, Twitter has made it easy to become a publisher. Now, you can broadcast your knowledge through live audio, encourage people to subscribe to your newsletter, and even let them tip you for your work.
With a new CEO anda new direction,Twitter can finally achieve some much sought-after user base growth. So what’s next? A crypto startup acquisition?
Story byIvan Mehta
Ivan covers Big Tech, India, policy, AI, security, platforms, and apps for TNW. That’s one heck of a mixed bag. He likes to say “Bleh.“Ivan covers Big Tech, India, policy, AI, security, platforms, and apps for TNW. That’s one heck of a mixed bag. He likes to say “Bleh.”
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