Twitter Expanding Data Research, Purchases Gnip

Twitter TWTR wants to make its data more accessible to users.

In a blog post Tuesday morning, the social media company announced an agreement to purchase Gnip, a leading provider of social data and a long-standing Twitter data partner.

"Together we plan to offer more sophisticated data sets and better data enrichments," the blog post said, "so that even more developers and businesses big and small around the world can drive innovation using the unique content that is shared on Twitter."\

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TechCrunch says Gnip can offer access not just to Twitter data, but also "APIs that provide data from other social networks including Reddit, Instagram, Tumblr, Bitly and more." This can strengthen Twitter's control over "monetization of its own content."

Twitter has scared some investors recently, after a study from Twopcharts announced that 44 percent of Twitter's 974 million users have never sent a single tweet.

Shares of Twitter closed Monday at $40.87, but are currently up 1.4 percent at $41.46 after Tuesday's opening bell.