Tweetdeck Bought - Again

Twitter has announced completion of the Tweetdeck deal- says CNN:

Twitter has acquired TweetDeck, an application for organizing the display of tweets, for more than $40 million in a mix of cash and stock, according to sources close to the deal.

We shall see, there have been many slips twixt cup and lip on this one. (Update - yes, it is official but as yet stock/cash split is unknown)

So, while its (very) good news for Tweetdecks' shareholders, is it good for Twitter? Strategically most of the betting is on Twitter acquiring something that is better in the Twittertent than out, possibly even to strangle it*.

Is it a fair price - no, of course not, its a Bubblenomics business case. In any "normal" economy, paying $40m for a zero-revenue feature that uses your own platform to organise what are essentially SMS's with pictures into columns, is completely daft. You can build that for a few hundred thousand and probably bribe a user base the size of Tweetdeck's to comeover for far less - but it's BubbleTime, and in BubbleTime its all about the urgent acquisition of eyeballs (remember them from Dotcom 1.0) Now!

And last week people paid $100 a share for a glorified business card swopping service, and soon people will pay silly money for an eCoupon business (that most low value of low value businesses in the Real World).

So, lets use my overpriced stock to buy your overvalued eyeballs and pretend they will watch Ads one day - what the hey!

What is not clear yet is how much cash (as opposed to shares) was handed over for what is still a zero revenue company. That will be the true measure of the Twitterflutter

But personally, I hope they don't strangle Tweetdeck, as the actual official Twitter app on the iPhone is appalling (and the web one isn't much better)!

*I don't really buy the "have to buy Tweetdeck for its user base/ keep it out of UberMedia" argument. Twitter could easily shut off Ubermedia/Tweetdeck or build its own Tweetdeckand entice users over. To me the greatest (only?) advantage of buying Tweetdeck is getting an infitely better user experience, which may persuade another large tranche of users to join. Let's hope Twitter at least extracts that bit of value.