Gnip
{{Infobox dot-com company
| name = Gnip, Inc.
| foundation = 2008
| founder = Jud Valeski and Eric Marcoullier
| location = Boulder, Colorado, United States
| area_served = Worldwide
| industry = Social Media API Aggregation
| language = English
| url = {{URL|http://www.gnip.com}}
}}
Gnip, Inc. was a social media API aggregation company that was purchased by Twitter in 2014. Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, it provided data from dozens of social media websites via a single API. Gnip was among the first social media API aggregation services.
Gnip is known as an early influencer in building the real-time web.{{cite web |title=Gnip: Grand Central Station for the Social Web |url=http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/gnip_grand_central_station.php |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130201064726/http://readwrite.com/2008/07/01/gnip_grand_central_station |archive-date=2013-02-01 |access-date=2017-09-16 |website=readwriteweb.com}} The company has also been instrumental in defining relevant web standards: 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 purchased Gnip in April 2014.{{cite news |author=Shih |first=Gerry |last2=Mukherjee |first2=Supantha |date=15 April 2014 |title=Twitter buys social data provider Gnip, stock soars |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-gnip-idUSBREA3E17D20140415 |access-date=2017-09-16 |website=Reuters}}
History
Gnip was founded by Jud Valeski and Eric Marcoullier with an initial investment of $1 million.{{cite web |date=14 March 2008 |title=MyBlogLog Founder To Launch New Startup Gnip With $1 Million In Funding |url=https://techcrunch.com/2008/03/14/mybloglog-founder-to-launch-new-startup-gnip-with-1-million-in-funding/ |access-date=2017-09-16 |website=TechCrunch}} 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,Lowensohn, Josh (July 1, 2008). [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9981914-2.html "Gnip to bridge the data divide for noisy Web services"]. [https://data365.co CNET]. {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120712221900/http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9981914-2.html#selection-945.1-945.13|date=2012-07-12}}. Retrieved 2017-09-16. the product was designed to act as an intermediary to simplify the collection of social media data.{{cite web|url=https://techcrunch.com/2008/09/30/gnip-20-launches-with-a-business-model/|title=Gnip 2.0 Launches, With A Business Model|website=TechCrunch|date=October 2008 |access-date=2017-09-16}} The company used the tagline "making data portability suck less."{{cite web|url=http://www.foundrygroup.com/wp/2008/07/gnip-is-ping-spelled-backwards/|title=Gnip is Ping Spelled Backwards|website=Foundry Group|date=July 2008 |access-date=2017-09-16}}
By the end of 2008, Gnip had raised $3.5 million in Series B funding from investors such as the Foundry Group and First Round Capital.{{cite web |title=Gnip Raises $3.5 Million |url=http://gigaom.com/2008/11/04/gnip-raises-35-million/ |access-date=2017-09-16 |website=gigaom.com}}{{cite web |last=Eldon |first=Eric |date=4 November 2008 |title=Data-sharing service Gnip raises $3.5 million |url=https://venturebeat.com/2008/11/04/data-sharing-service-gnip-raises-35-million/ |access-date=2017-09-16 |website=VentureBeat}} The service was used for projects like collecting huge volumes of data for analyzing Twitter clients.[http://microblink.com/2009/02/19/top-twitter-clients-revealed/ Top Twitter Clients Revealed] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100625010810/http://microblink.com/2009/02/19/top-twitter-clients-revealed/ |date=June 25, 2010 }}
In 2009, Gnip launched a Push API.{{cite web|url=https://techcrunch.com/2009/07/09/gnip-launches-push-api-to-create-real-time-stream-of-business-data/|title=Gnip Launches Push API To Create Real-Time Stream Of Business Data|website=TechCrunch|date=9 July 2009 |access-date=2017-09-16}} In September, Gnip underwent a significant product overhaul accompanied by an internal restructuring of resources.{{cite web|url=https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/28/gnip-clips-60-percent-of-staff/|title=Gnip Clips 60 Percent Of Staff|website=TechCrunch|date=28 September 2009}}
In 2010, Gnip launched their new and revised social media data collection product{{cite web|url=http://www.feld.com/archives/2010/03/the-best-sla-ive-seen-in-a-while.html|title=The Best SLA I've Seen In A While - Feld Thoughts|website=feld.com|date=25 March 2010 |access-date=2017-09-16}} and released a manual describing use cases and significance of Twitter Inc's streaming API.{{cite web|url=http://www.techcrunchit.com/2010/02/18/gnips-manual-on-the-twitter-streaming-api/|title=Gnip's Manual On The Twitter Streaming API|website=TechCrunch|access-date=2017-09-16}} Gnip's sources included Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Google Buzz, Vimeo, and others.{{cite web|url=http://gnip.com/sources|title=Gnip - Sources|website=gnip.com|access-date=2017-09-16}}
In April 2014, Gnip was acquired by Twitter for $134.1 million in mostly cash and some stock.{{cite news |last1=Koh |first1=Yoree |date=11 August 2014 |title=Twitter Paid $134 Million for Data Partner Gnip - Digits |url=https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/08/11/twitter-paid-134-million-for-data-partner-gnip/ |access-date=2017-09-16 |newspaper=Wall Street Journal}}