I along with the rest of the team will continue to work on our killer clients but with the backing and support of Twitter and the team in San Francisco. I'm super excited to be working for such a groundbreaking company that is defining how we communicate in real time across the world.
Twitter has some really talented designers and engineers but they have just acquired the best team I have ever work in. I'm still blown away by the products and features we have produced across desktop and mobile given such a small team and limited resources.
There is something special about working at a startup. It's the atmosphere, the drive and determination to create an awesome experience for the users of our products. Some UX people will be shocked at this but we never used or created any persona's for our products. The reason was simple we are our target users and that has always been the philosophy right from when Iain created TweetDeck - he built it to scratch his own itch. TweetDeck is for the high end userbase someone who might be managing multiple accounts for a brand or company to the user managing his streams from thousands of users and everywhere in between. But the clients were always friendly enough that if you had a single account you could use the apps to manage your social interactions easier.
News reports
The official announcements can be read from Twitter and from us at TweetDeck. Lot's of sites and newspapers ran the story and here is a small selection:
The rumour mill has been in full swing over the last few weeks surrounding TweetDeck and a possible acquisition. I'm not going to comment on those previous rumours, however the whole experience has made me very aware about how inaccurate tech news can spread across the web like wildfire. Always take everything you read on or offline with a pinch of salt.
Celebration
We had a celebratory lunch on Wednesday with the team.
History
I worked with Iain back in 2007 / 2008 when we were both in the financial sector prior to his starting TweetDeck. Iain finished his contract and I left to join Nokia Music but we both stayed intouch. I took a trip down email memory lane and found the first email from Iain regarding TweetDeck and an invite to the very first 'secret beta' version. That was the 26th June 2008.
The future
In the space of just under three years TweetDeck has gone from a personal tool for Iain to manage his Twitter stream to a userbase of millions across the globe. Being involved in this has been a fantastic experience both professionally and personally and looking at where Twitter is heading there is plenty more to come.
A new chapter begins...
