Twitter scoops up Brit telly analytics outfit SecondSync

Twitter has bought British company SecondSync as it continues to ramp up its efforts to elbow its way into the lucrative television market by keeping conversations about the box buzzing on the micro-blogging site.

The three-year-old firm specialises in social analytics products. Terms of the acquisition were kept secret.

The outfit, whose co-founders - according to Companies House - include brothers Andy and Ted Littledale, is based in Aardman Animations studio in Bristol and at Google's Techhub base in East London.

SecondSync, which said it was "delighted" with the merger, will now be folded into Twitter's UK operations. It added in a canned statement on its website:

Twitter is the only place that hosts a real-time, public conversation about TV at scale. By joining Twitter, we will be able to help take that experience, in concert with the rest of the TV ecosystem, to the next level - particularly in markets outside the United States. Our current UK product will continue to be available for an interim period.

Kantar Media - a data investment management division of ad giant WPP - plowed cash into SecondSync in August last year when it slurped a minority stake in the company.

SecondSync joins UK-based social media dashboard - Tweetdeck - that Twitter bought for $40m in 2011. ®