What Does the Purchase of Tweetie Mean?

In the past few days Twitter has made some bold steps outlining their future strategies. The largest gauntlet thrown was the purchase of the company that develops the popular iPhone and MAC OS-X twitter app Tweetie, Atebits. Here is an official quote from the Twitter blog entry written by CEO, Evan Williams:

“We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve entered into an agreement with Atebits (aka Loren Brichter) to acquire Tweetie, a leading iPhone Twitter client. Tweetie will be renamed Twitter for iPhone and made free (currently $2.99) in the iTunes AppStore in the coming weeks. Loren will become a key member of our mobile team that is already having huge impact with device makers and service providers around the world. Loren’s work won the 2009 Apple Design Award and we will eventually launch Twitter for iPad with his help”.

Tweetie 2 is my mobile twitter app of preference as it is a clean and productive app. The bonus now for consumers is that this app is now free and it becomes the “official” Twitter app. This means that by searching in the iTunes AppStore, this app will pop up first and will quickly become the most popular twitter app. A recent check of the AppStore and Tweetie would not even pop up on the first page of apps when you entered in the “Twitter” keyword.

This purchase has the mobile developers for Twitter very nervous. The purchase as seen as a warning shot towards all of the iPhone twitter app developers. Mobile is where the future is and twitter has taken the first step to secure it’s mobile future on the iPhone platform. I wonder aloud what will mobile apps such as Tweetdeck and Seesmic will do to continue to compete with Tweetie. We can only assume that an “official” twitter desktop app is coming as well. This would work hand in hand with the web version of twitter. Ironically, within the blog post by Evan Williams, he also mentions launching a “tweetie-like” app for the iPad which should happen within the next three weeks. It makes perfect sense to partner with a strong app such as Tweetie and continue to usher it into the mainstream through the launch of the iPad. The second coincidence with this announcement is that on April 14-15, 2010, Twitter is hosting it’s Chirp conference in San Francisco. This sets up the conference to give us further details into the future growth of Twitter. On their agenda is the hot topic of 2010 known as geo-location as well as mobile integration. I expect to learn about some interesting developments during this two day conference.

Like it or not, twitter has become a valid method of communication and news discovery for everybody. As this internet eco-system grows and evolves we have to pay attention to the trends and attempt to stay ahead of the game. I predict that within six months there will be half as many Twitter mobile apps for the iPhone as there is currently. I also predict that a Windows Mobile twitter app company and an Android app company will also be purchased within the next three months. We are all witnesses … of Twitter taking control of it’s mobile identity.

Are you a Tweetie2 user? Share your thoughts in the comments.

About the Author
I am a developing social and digital media junkie on an adventure through life. Right now I am on the chapter in the book where I live in Los Angeles. Reach me on twitter @ahr19. Thanks for reading my post.
See all posts by Amani.