Twitter Buys Social Media Data Provider Gnip

In the US, Twitter has acquired social media data provider and long-term partner Gnip for an undisclosed sum.

Founded in 2008 by Jud Valeski and Eric Marcoullier - who previously sold his firm MyBlogLog to Yahoo! for an estimated $10m - Boulder, CO-based Gnip provides real-time social media data from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other sources, to social media monitoring companies. In 2010, the firm raised $2m in new financing, as it became the first authorized reseller of Twitter's 'Firehose' data stream.

In a blog post, Twitter said the buy will enable it to mine more deeply into the 500 million tweets sent daily across its network.

Web sites: www.twitter.com and www.gnip.com .