New York Times, April 9: Twitter Acquires Atebits, Maker of Tweetie
Fred Wilson, an investor at Union Square Ventures and a longtime Twitter board member, stoked those fears in a blog post in which he wrote that many third-party Twitter services, including mobile clients like Tweetie’s, are features that Twitter should offer itself......Twitter, which raised $100 million in September, has the cash to go on a shopping spree..... the most popular mobile Twitter clientEvan Williams, April 9: Evan William's Message To Twitter Developers
“It’s a question of what should be left up to the ecosystem and what should be created on the platform.” Twitter will continue to buy or develop apps and features it needs, even if third-party developers already provide them, Mr. Williams said.Fred Wilson, April 7: The Twitter Platform's Inflection Point
Netizen, April 7: Twitter Needs To Eat Into Its Ecosystem
When Fred wrote his blog post, it was one blogger blogging away: The Twitter Platform's Inflection Point. That is what he has said, and of course I believe him. He vastly underestimated the reaction. The Silicon Alley Insider called it a "bombshell." UK's Telegraph was talking about it. GigaOm was all excited. There was a post on TechCrunch about it. There was some major buzz at several lesser blogs.
I really appreciated Zemanta - one of Fred's portfolio companies - during this drama. I put out my echo blog post within hours, and Zemanta gave me a good idea of all the dust Fred's blog post had raised: Twitter Needs To Eat Into Its Ecosystem.
Of course Twitter acquired Summize a long time ago, so it is not like Tweetie is Twitter's very first acquisition.
I have said to Fred the 2010s will be his best decade yet as a VC. I have said that in his comments sections.
He was offended - rightly so - by some of the things that got said about him by inference on TechCrunch back in December, basically that he was an investor in the social game Farmville, which is a scam game, hence the term scamville. (Anu Shukla Has Found The New Frontier In Advertising) That is like saying FourSquare is designed to help burglars rob your homes. By the way that is also something TechCrunch said. (Location! Location! Location!)
I am all for free speech, but Farmville and FourSquare just so happen to be cutting edge web properties. You can't be the top tech blog if you don't realize that. Traffic levels can not take long to vanish.
Farmville is the media savior, it is not the iPad, and FourSquare is the next Twitter, that cutting edge. (The iPad Is No Laptop Killer)
What I have also said to Fred is expect nastier things said about you in the future. It is the nature of being a public figure of sorts. It is like Hillary said about her husband in 1991 towards the end of an event, "He still does not realize they can't leave until he does." The Gotham Gal might have something to say.
It is a man bit dog impulse of the media. They will sometimes say it even where is no man around, no dog around.
Fred's entire family blogs. There is a section on my BlogRoll called Fred's Family. It has been up for months.
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