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Twitter Acquires Cloudhopper

Over the last eight months Twitter has been working with Seattle startup Cloudhopper to become one of the highest volume SMS programs in the word. Twitter processes close to a billion SMS tweets per month and that number is growing around the world from Indonesia to Australia, the UK, the US, and beyond.

Now, Twitter has announced it has formally acquired Cloudhopper to connect directly to mobile carrier networks in these countries all over the planet.

The acquisition seems to be a clear signal that Twitter is looking to expand further into areas where cost is a primary factor and the majority of users would interact with the service using SMS instead of desktop computers, smartphones or laptops.

Twitter’s 140 character limit was designed specifically to allow for any tweet to be read in its entirety whether you’re using a rudimentary mobile phone, or a more sophisticated Internet enabled device. The company processes nearly one billion SMS tweets a month and that number is growing. So how does Cloudhopper fit into this?

Cloudhopper supplies “the underlying software and infrastructure to reliably scale and geographically disperse some of the world’s highest volume messaging programs” according to the company’s website. The service handles both SMS and MMS (text and multimedia) messaging in North America, Europe and Africa.

As part of the acquisition, Joe Lauer and Kristin Kanaar will be joining Twitter’s mobile team. Note to startups: This is how you get acquired by a bigger company. Partner with them first. [24×7]

Get more info in the Seattle24x7 blog