In their never-ending quest for world domination, Google has acquired fflick, a Twitter analytics tool developed to track user tweets about movies. Fflick tracks tweets and organizes them based on most recent, most positive, negative, what your friends say, etc. Unlike Groupon, which was reluctant to accept the Empire’s $5.3 billion deal, fflick’s small start-up team happily accepted the generous $10 million buy-out.
Why Buy Out?
Over the past year, Google has been continuously delving into the social web space and optimizing their search engine to be more local. A unique analytic tool like fflick has great potential to contribute to their developments. As Google continues to tweak their search engine page rankings based on social signals, fflick could add much needed and organized contextual-base data.
In addition, fflick’s tools could be integrated into Google Places. The shift to smartphones is happening quickly. As consumers search for local hot spots, a pop up of tweet reviews next to a spot on Google Maps, could be extremely useful and convenient. Users could tweet about a location their curious about, then view tweet responses via fflick. With enough followers, you could potentially receive instant recommendations and reviews. Advertisers will also greatly benefit from fflick’s organized feedback system.
In addition to tracking tweets about films, The developers of fflick want to see their tool eventually incorporate tweet tracking for TV, news, products, food and potentially other categories. Fflick can change the way consumers and advertisers use twitter. The Dell Social Media Listening Center kind of seems a bit like overkill now, doesn’t it?
Written By: Daniel T.
