Exciting Acquisitions: Twitter, Snapchat, Microsoft and More!

Some of the biggest names in the industry have been busy this month. We’ve had Snapchat on a shopping spree and so much more, have a read and see what interesting acquisitions may affect you and your favourite tech.

http://www.in.all.biz/

The first on our list is Twitter’s unconfirmed acquisition-to-be.

No-one’s sure what the conniving plan behind the acquisition might be, but Twitter seems pretty desperate to buy the magazine style sharing app: Flipboard.

The app seems rather pricey, considering I’d never heard of it. But Twitter sound like they’re willing to pay more than $1 billion in stock to make the acquisition.

Flipboard started up in 2010 and has a big user-base, but how many of these aren’t already on Twitter?

All we know at this stage is that the two brands have been engaging in a series of chats since the beginning of the year and it could finally be time for things to come to a head. Neither Twitter nor Flipboard have commented on the situation at the moment.

Next on the agenda, is the just as exciting investment that Snapchat has put into the shopping app called Spring.

For a platform that could have easily been a fad,  an acquisition like this is a big deal. Snapchat has done so well, I’m really impressed. It hasn’t really changed or abandoned its roots. Yes, it’s added a few features and taken the more intruding ones away. But overall, it’s managed to shed its sexy reputation and become a whole new social media platform.

The creation of Snapcash allowed users to process transfers to friends through the app. So this might explain why Snapchat is putting money into an app that involves buying goods. The shopping app is less than a year old and has been praised for its succinct interface. The app’s main aim is to pull together a variety of brands, all to be viewed in one place. The checkout process is the quickest of any mobile app. Which is why I think it’s perfect for Snapchat.

Being speedy is what these two apps do best!

http://www.pymnts.com/

Once again, neither app has confirmed the deal yet but with Facebook and Twitter already one step ahead of Snapchat with their buy buttons, it’s about time Snapchat made an effort to catch up.  

Third on the list is the US-based software giant, Microsoft who are reportedly looking at Blackberry! They are seriously considering investing in the Canadian smartphone company, because you know, having one failed phone brand (Nokia) under your belt just isn’t enough.

                                                                     

The iPhone was the nail in Blackberry’s coffin. No amount of hard resets could save it. Apparently they only sold 1.6 million phones in its fourth financial quarter, when we compare that to Apple who sold 75 million iPhones during the same time, it just doesn’t look good.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/

That leaves Blackberry in a bad place, where it is more than definitely up for grabs. There’s been a few other tech companies like Lenovo showing interest, but so far, nothing has been confirmed.

Apple have also been busy spending some wonga. MacRumours has discovered Apple’s recent acquisition of Coherent Navigation. Coherent Navigation isn’t your run-of-the-mill location data based company. They combine your average GPS data with some information from Iridium’s low-orbit communication satellites to identify your location within inches!  

This could work quite well with that Apple car we mentioned earlier, am I right?

Finally, there has also been an announcement to say that Facebook’s Oculus Rift has acquired technology start up Surreal Vision. The company is renowned for its work in designing spatially aware computers. How can this NOT be a match made in heaven for the King of virtual reality?

It might even stop people bumping into stuff whilst they’re under the headset and delving deep into their virtual world.

So I think that’s all folks: a quick summary of all the major acquisitions / acquisitions-to-be that have occurred / might have occurred within the last couple of weeks. It’s been a busy month and we at Social Songbird are wondering if there is something in the air that is making these companies splash out! 

Megan Herdson

Megan is a country girl who moved to the city with some big dreams. She is studying her MA in Creative Writing whilst also managing an American Football Team.  She loves her blog and wants nothing more than to have her words read. That and to win the Championship, obviously. Follow her @MeganAtSMF

 

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