YouTube founders buy social analytics firm Tap11

By Geoff Duncan May 9, 2011

Last month, YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen’s Avos picked up venerable Internet bookmarking service Del.icio.us from Yahoo’s cast-off pile—probably at a bargain rate. Now, they’ve made another deal, buying social media analytics outfit Tap11 for another undisclosed amount.

Tap11 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Tap11 is an analytics company that (so far) is focused on tracking what people are talking about on Facebook and Twitter. Tap11’s technology is designed to measure the effectiveness and spread of social media campaigns, so advertisers and others can see what sorts of tweets and Facebook messages users respond to, which gain the most traction and spread amongst followers, and which just fall flat.

The acquisition is the latest move for Hurley and Chen’s new company Avos, which describes itself merely as a “new Internet company” aiming to build a new information discovery service. Other than the just-acquired Del.icio.us, Avos has no public products or services. Chen and Hurley got their starts at PayPal, then went on to found YouTube, which they sold to Google in 2005.

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