Attensity picks up Biz360 for enhanced social media monitoring

Attensity, a data analysis company, has agreed to acquire social media monitoring software company Biz360 according to Venturewire. The company has since made an official announcement. Terms of the deal have not been released.

According to Venturewire, Attensity plans to provide deeper analytics through the Biz360 platform, which have already been integrated through a previous co-selling arrangement. Now dubbed Attensity360, the monitoring tool will continue to track social conversations, including sentiment, topic trends and competitive analysis. The tool gives businesses the opportunity to engage and react to those conversations in real-time. Additional features are planned to be available this summer. Price packages for the new product range from basic at $399 to Premium at $2,799.

The market for social media monitoring companies has been steadily growing since 2008, back when the more popular term was “Internet reputation”. Traditional research power-houses, like Nielsen and J.D Power, have been to get a handle on the Internet. For example, J.D. Power snapped up reputation tracker Umbria to monitor and analyze message boards and blogs and Nielsen bought Telephia for mobile phone traffic measurement.

While others tried to catch-up, Biz360 continued to be a pioneer in the social monitoring space. Focusing on not just collecting of data, but analysis and what it meant. At the time, this was a major differentiator between itself and competitors who lacked this detail for customers. 

Meanwhile, investors continue to see the growth potential in social media monitoring companies. Klout, which measures Twitter influencer, today announced a first round of funding for $1.5 million according to TechCrunch. Visible Technologies also recently announced a $22 million fourth round of funding for $22 million. Bringing its total funding to $34 million. Radian6, another earlier adopter of tracking and measuring social media, announced its first profitable year and is looking to increase its research and development spending by 50 percent this year.