Twitter, the popular social network with over 200 Million users, acquired a spam and malware protection company. Anyone who uses the site is often familiar with accounts getting hacked and the sometimes abundant spam that gets targeted at you.

They’ve managed to put a system in place over the years that helps crack down on that and accounts that just spam the daylights out of whoever, whenever, and they’ve done a pretty good job at it.

Now, with the help of a spam and malware protection service, the social network can further improve their efforts to crack down on these annoyances and provide a better experience for everyone.

Via Mashable:

“Gearing up for Twitter’s self-serve advertising launch — currently in beta stage with only a small selection of advertisers — the company announced its acquisition of spam and malware protection service Dasient on Monday.”

“Dasient will be integrated into Twitter’s “revenue engineering team because they have a deep understanding of advertising-platform security issues,” says Rachael Horwitz, a spokesperson for Twitter. The team will be very valuable as Twitter continues to expand its ad products.”

This is a smart move for the company as more advertisers equals more dollars. If too many have a bad experience with spam, normal, every day users as well, that negatively affects the service and could have them potentially go elsewhere.

“Protecting users from potential spam and malware attacks is important for the company’s image and reputation. Sites overrun with malware get blacklisted by search engines.”

Do you have a Twitter account?

Twitter Goes On The Defensive, Acquires Malware Protection Service is a post from: The Inquisitr

As with any growing social network, acquisitions can come often to further enhance the service. With Summify, a social aggregator, that’s definitely the case.

Twitter acquired the company for an undisclosed sum and as far as what they plan to use it for, well, signs point to the same way it was used before, just with the Twitter branding, give or take a few changes.

In their own words, “Summify creates a beautiful daily summary of the most relevant news from your social networks, and delivers it to you by email, web or mobile.”

Via Wired:

“Considering the torrent of information Twitter delivers on a real-time basis — to say nothing of all the other social networks where we work and play — the possibility of integrating a product like Summify makes a great deal of sense. The product is essentially a daily bulletin of pertinent information, using algorithms to separate the ‘wheat’ it thinks you want to read from the ‘chaff’ you don’t. And if you’re a voracious news and social information consumer like the average Silicon Valley techie, Summify functioned as a great way to get your fix of what you’ve recently missed.”

For existing users and those looking to join, the service is unfortunately no more as it gets integrated into Twitter.

Starting today, the following changes will take effect:

• We’re removing the ability to make your summaries public (i.e. all summaries will be private)
• We’re removing profile pages and influence pages
• We’re removing the auto-publish feature
• We’re disabling user registration from the website, iPhone and Hootsuite apps

What do you think of Twitter’s latest interface? Like it, hate it?

Twitter Acquires Summify, Social Aggregation Tool is a post from: The Inquisitr

The supposed deal, uncovered by BoomTown’s Kara Swisher, had reached the point of “several weeks of serious talks” before falling through just recently. The reason? Mainly money, Swisher says.

Twitter execs seemingly believed it was worth taking a shot at creating their own revenue-generating system before giving up the company. And, BoomTown’s sources claim, the $500 million offer — which was in an all-stock form — was seen as being “inflated,” since Facebook’s actual valuation is said to be closer to $5 billion.

Still, any sale at this point would also inherit Twitter’s lack of revenue and estimated $75 million annual tab for all of the text messages it sends out free-of-charge to its users. That fact, no doubt, makes any deal slightly less sweet for a potential purchaser.

Of course, the whole thing could be a simple game of bargaining. “The question is, is it really a good idea to sell on the first chance you get?” one source told BoomTown.

And, sure enough, Facebook is expected to keep at it. So too are a handful of other large companies, including such big names as Google, Microsoft, or even Yahoo.

So did Twitter screw up by turning down the $500 million offer? Probably not. Unlike Yahoo and its infamous Microsoft mess-up, Twitter isn’t walking away at a dead end with no other offers in sight. It sure seems that it’ll have plenty of lucrative options down the road, if it chooses to go that route.

Do you think Twitter should take the bait and go for a sale in the coming year, assuming the price is right? Or do you think it’d be better off staying independent and trying to develop its own revenue model? The polls are officially open.

Report: Twitter Turns Down $500 Million Offer From Facebook is a post from: The Inquisitr