Twitter buys social TV analytics company Bluefin Labs

Twitter is really taking this social television business quite seriously. Last year it partnered with research house Nielsen to launch “Nielsen Twitter TV Rating”. The project was launched for the US market and allowed the companies to deliver a metric for gauging TV conversation reach on the social network.

Now Twitter has acquired Bluefin Labs, a social TV analytics company, reports Business Insider. Rumoured to be in the region of US$800-million, this is the social network’s largest acquisition to date. If the rumours are true it means a big pay day for investors.

“Bluefin Labs has raised US$20.5-million to date, we assume the price is between US$50 and US$100-million (or higher), a healthy return for its investors, Time Warner Investments, SoftBank Capital, Acadia Woods Partners, Bedrocket Media’s Brian Bedol, Jim Pallotta, Redpoint Ventures, Dan Gilbert, Lerer Ventures, Kepha Partners and the National Science Foundation,” surmises the Insider.

Last year when Twitter announced its partnership with Nielsen, its vice president of media, Chloe Sladden said that the social network’s users “love the shared experience”.

“Our users love the shared experience of watching television while engaging with other viewers and show talent. Twitter has become the world’s digital water cooler, where conversations about TV happen in real time. Nielsen is who the networks rely on to give better content to viewers and clearer results to marketers,” said Sladden.

According to AllThingsD, Twitter is buying both Bluefin’s team and its technology, and will end up turning its Boston headquarters into a Twitter office.

Apparently even though Bluefin Labs had managed to raise a respectable sum of money, people familiar with matter say the company was battling to convince big brands to use its services. Perhaps an alliance with Twitter is just what it needs.

Twitter has a great relationship with television, recent Twitter numbers release during the Super Bowl show how much users are eager to share what they are watching.