Mass Relevance becomes first Twitter re-syndication partner

Twitter announced on their developer’s blog today that Mass Relevance — which includes ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC as clients — will be their “first of several partners officially licensed to re-syndicate Twitter content for display”. Mass Relevance explains the partnership on its blog:

What does this partnership mean?

1. Mass Relevance is the first “curation” partner licensed to re-syndicate Twitter content for the purpose of display, publishing and broadcast.
2. For the first time ever, media and brands can “monetize” Twitter content and create sponsorable products working with Mass Relevance.
3. Mass Relevance now has Firehose-level Twitter access to serve our clients better, which means our clients get 100% of tweets and counts they want (we source from all 250 million tweeted per day). With full access we’ve also been able to add new and unique sourcing and filtering capabilities.
4. Mass Relevance now offers over 25 Tweet-based integration ‘modules’ (embedded javascript) approved via Twitter display guidelines, with more to come. These include Q&A, flock-to-unlock, polls, filtered streams, ratings, photo galleries, counters, trends, TV display, and more.

Crimson Hexagon, a company whose services “distill *meaning* from the social media conversation,” is also mentioned as a useful platform in Twitter’s post but does not get described as being a “first” partner like Mass Relevance. Their’s also no mention of the Twitter announcement on their blog, Twitter, or Facebook.

It seems like this new partnership will provide an easier way for companies to use the Twitter fire hose on a massive scale like The Weather Channel is doing without having Terms of Service issues. It’s also a big win for Mass Relevance just from a PR perspective. When I asked Decker if Twitter will try to buy them or if he’d ever sell, he said that they always keep their options open.

Twitter, meanwhile, says the deal isn’t a big money-maker for the social network. “This is about growth, not a revenue play for us,” said Chloe Sladden, Twitter’s director of content and programming.