As everyone already knows, Twitter acquired Summize.
What does it mean about for Twitter?
First and foremost, this makes Summize gives life to the data inherent in Twitter. We now have a faster and more efficient way to find people, objects and anything in between which we may want to track in Twitter. Thus Twitter is now a legitimate business intelligence tool with Summize acting as a stepping-stone to a demographic of early technology adopters and likely higher-income individuals. Cool.
Second, Summize serves the purpose of helping connect and establish new relationships. Here is a concerete example: let’s say you needed to hire a logo designer. Before, you would create a status update stating “looking to hire a designer” and hope that the people following you would help connect you to someone looking for work. Now, with much improved search we could actually locate someone out of our network, allowing users to be even more proactive and ultimately driving more viral growth as the number of connections grows. In some ways, Twitter suggests that there could be a marketplace or ecosystem more akin to Craigslist.
Summize is a great addition and we can’t wait to see how exposing more data and relationships drives Twitter adoption and usage. Also check out this great interview between Michael Arrington and Evan Williams.