Twitter announced its latest acquisition this morning, and it’s an interesting one in the context of the company’s global ambitions. It’s buying Indian company ZipDial for an undisclosed amount, hinting at similar ambitions to Facebook’s push into zero-rated internet data for emerging markets.
“Over the next several years, billions of people will come online for the first time in countries like Brazil, India and Indonesia. For many, their first online experience will be on a mobile device – but the cost of data may prevent them from experiencing the true power of the Internet. Twitter, in partnership with ZipDial, can make great content more accessible to everyone,” explained Twitter in a blog post. Twitter and ZipDial have already been working together in India on campaigns including “cricket scores, audio programming, tweets from their favourite Bollywood stars – and much more”, but how that develops now both within India and elsewhere will be very interesting to watch. “Our ambitious goal is to make Twitter’s unique, great content accessible to 100% of the world’s mobile users, including those in emerging markets who will be experiencing the mobile Internet for the first time,” said ZipDial as the news broke.
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