Twitter buys SMS start up

Micro blogging phenomenon Twitter has further expanded its operations in the mobile space with the purchase of SMS technology start up Cloudhopper for an undisclosed sum.

In a blog post, Twitter’s mobile business development director Kevin Thau explained that the micro-blogging service was originally inspired by SMS, with Twitter’s 140 character limit designed to allow any tweet to be read on any mobile device.

“Over the last eight months we have been working with a start up called Cloudhopper to become one of the highest volume SMS programs in the world—Twitter processes close to a billion SMS tweets per month and that number is growing around the world from Indonesia to Australia, the UK, the US, and beyond,” he added.

“To help us further grow and scale our SMS service, we are happy to announce the acquisition of Cloudhopper, a messaging infrastructure company that enables Twitter to connect directly to mobile carrier networks in countries all over the planet."

Twitter has been busy in the mobile space this month, with the acquisition of Atebits, the manufacturer of the popular Tweetie iPhone application, and the launch of a dedicated BlackBerry app built by Research in Motion.

The Cloudhopper acquisition also comes as Twitter finally looks to monetise the service. The newly launched Promoted Tweets feature which will see Twitter charge advertisers for placing tweets at the top of some search results.