Recently Twitter announced that it will be changing its default URL shortner from bit.ly to an in-house solution. Obviously, this change will help Twitter get a better idea about trending stories on Twitter. As the next step in its goal of better understanding the pulse of the web, Twitter has acquired Smallthought Systems.
Smallthought Systems is a four person startup that is responsible for creating Dabble DB, an online database and web analytics filter tool that was being utilized by Twitter until a year ago. They are also the developers of Trendly, a service which helps making sense of Google Analytics data. Once again, Twitter’s analytics team found use for Trendly. In fact, Twitter was one of the earliest testers of Trendly.
As a result of the acquisition, Avi Bryant, Andrew Catton, Ben Matasar, and Luke Andrews from Smallthought Systems will now join Twitter’s analytics team. This also probably means the end of the road for DabbleDB and Trendly. Although Smallthought has promised to continue providing both the services to existing customers, new account signups has been disabled.
