Twitter buys SMS start-up Cloudhopper

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

Twitter's mobile business development director, Kevin Thau, explained in a blog post yesterday that the micro-blogging service was originally inspired by SMS, and that Twitter's 140-character limit was 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," he said.

"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.

"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 will see Twitter charge advertisers for placing tweets at the top of some search results.