UPDATED 08:10 EDT / JULY 01 2011

Twitter in Flames? Under Federal Investigation.

Twitter HQReports around the web are buzzing around Twitter’s methodology during the time of purchasing TweetDeck.  They made it first, and asked questions later; but did they step into the line of fire? If so, it’s hard to decide where to draw the line.

“Bill Gross, who created UberTwitter, received funding with the idea that the money would be used to buy TweetDeck. It sort of looked like Gross might be planning to launch a Twitter competitor.

“Twitter reportedly became aggressive with Gross. Responsible for shutting down several his app UberTwitter for three days, and then by stepping in and acquiring TweetDeck for itself,” according to BusinessInsider.

Touching lightly on legal matters, Twitter could be recognized as a company that wants sole ownership of their presence.  Developers of Twitter applications probably have the thought in their minds that any long term endeavor may slow down or be ended by Twitter.

Gross may have been distracted by the UberTwitter situation.  In my opinion, it’s bad timing to have to deal with matters like that during a potential acquisition.   Whether Gross or Twitter had TweetDeck’s best interests for users,  it was bought by Twitter.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out, but a deal is a deal.  The fine print can often be overlooked.  The microscope could find something that all of the coverage is unaware of.


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