Gnip, Inc. was a

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

API aggregation

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...

that was purchased by Twitter in 2014. Headquartered in Boulder,

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

, it provided data from dozens of

websites via a single

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

. Gnip was among the first social media API aggregation services. Gnip is known as an early influencer in building the real-time web. The company has also been instrumental in defining relevant

web standards Web standards are the formal, non-proprietary standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of s ...

: Gnip's co-founder Eric Marcoullier actively advocated for adoption of open web standards, and helped define the new Activity Streams format for web data. Subsequent to a 2010 data licensing agreement with

Twitter Inc Twitter, Inc. is an American social media company based in San Francisco, California. The company operates the social networking service Twitter. It previously operated the Vine short video app and Periscope livestreaming service. Twitter ...

, Twitter purchased Gnip in April 2014.

History

Gnip was founded by Jud Valeski and Eric Marcoullier with an initial investment of $1 million. The company was based on the premise that collecting data from many social APIs simultaneously is tedious and time-consuming. It dubbed itself the "Grand Central Station for the Social Web" shortly after launch. Although the company launched with just a few basic features such as notifications, the product was designed to act as an intermediary to simplify the collection of social media data. The company used the tagline "making data portability suck less." By the end of 2008, Gnip had raised $3.5 million in

Series B funding Venture capital financing is a type of funding by venture capital. It is private equity capital that can be provided at various stages or funding rounds. Common funding rounds include early-stage seed funding in high-potential, growth companies ( ...

from investors such as the

Foundry Group A foundry is a factory that produces metal casting (metalworking), castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. T ...

and

First Round Capital First Round is a venture capital firm that specializes in providing seed-stage funding to technology companies. Founded by Josh Kopelman Joshua Kopelman is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and philanthropist. Kopelman is best ...

. The service was used for projects like collecting huge volumes of data for analyzing Twitter clients.Top Twitter Clients Revealed
In 2009, Gnip launched a Push API. In September, Gnip underwent a significant product overhaul accompanied by an internal restructuring of resources. In 2010, Gnip launched their new and revised social media data collection product and released a manual describing use cases and significance of Twitter Inc's streaming API. Gnip's sources included

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

Flickr Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and profession ...

Google Buzz Google Buzz was a social networking, microblogging and messaging tool that was developed by Google which replaced Google Wave and integrated into their web-based email program, Gmail. Users could share links, photos, videos, status messages an ...

Vimeo Vimeo, Inc. () is an American video hosting, sharing, and services platform provider headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices. Vimeo's business model is through software as ...

, and others. In April 2014, Gnip was acquired by Twitter for $134.1 million in mostly cash and some stock.

References

{{Twitter Navigation Aggregation websites Application programming interfaces Companies based in Boulder, Colorado Twitter, Inc. acquisitions 2014 mergers and acquisitions