From Source to Supplier: Twitter monetizing it’s data stream.

Late Friday night, DataSift announced that Twitter would not be renewing its contract with them. This is not surprising. But it does set a series of events in motion that will change the landscape of the social media development industry.

Until recently, Twitter has only been a “source” of data. With the acquisition of GNIP in 2014, they stepped into the “supplier” of data which allows for a steady stream of revenue. With this announcement, it shows that Twitter is now picking off the competitors to its supplier function.

The secondary market of vendors that need access to large amounts of data for processing (Clarabridge, Sprinklr, etc) have to prepare for this.

Here is Twitter’s certified business partner list. Any company on this list (not owned by Twitter) has to be concerned.

The first domino has fallen. This is not surprising and makes perfect sense. We will see how companies (vendors and suppliers) react to the changes.