Twitter Seeks to Expand Social Media Dominance via Partnerships

March 1, 2010 - By Justin E. Gehrke

March 01, 2010 – In a official blog posted this afternoon, Twitter announced the addition of more partners, with the intention of expanding how and for what the social media platform is used. Included in the list are companies such as Ellerdale, Collecta, Kosmix, Scoopler, twazzup, CrowdEye, and Chainn Search join us as partners. Ranging in size and function, they join the ranks of existing big-name partners like Yahoo, Microsoft and Google.

In addition to the obsessive-like embrace many twitterers exert on the service, another key behind Twitter’s rapid and unprecedented success has much to do with their willingness to partner with companies, both large and small, and the accessibility they offer via the service’s streaming API. To date, though, only the largest (and paying) companies have had access to Twitter’s full flow of real-time data.

Twitter estimates there are currently around 50,000 applications using their “freely available, rate-limited platform offerings” It’s obvious the company hopes to expand, not just their free partnerships, but the paid ones, as well. Any relationships can only be seen as symbiotic, since Twitter’s hopes for expansion across the web, as well as its retention of current users, are both dependent upon continued innovation in the highly competitive social media market. For many technology-oriented companies seeking to grow in the future, a partnership with Twitter may, indeed, be worth its weight in virtual gold.

Source: The Official Twitter Blog: Enabling a Rush of Innovation