Twitter has acquired Squad, a social screen-sharing app.
Angela Lang/CNET
Twitter is acquiring Squad, a social media app built around users’ ability to share their screens with one another.
“They’ll join our product, design, and eng teams and help accelerate our work to bring people new and creative tools to start and join conversations on the service,” tweeted Ilya Brown, head of product management at Twitter, on Friday.
Excited to share that the @squad team is joining @Twitter to help us bring new ways for people to interact, express themselves, and join in the public conversation.
— Ilya Brown (@ilyabr0wn) December 11, 2020
Unfortunately for fans of Squad, Twitter will be shutting down the screen sharing service as it brings the Squad team into the fold, the company confirmed in an email.
The Squad acquisition follows several recent moves by Twitter to expand the company’s features into areas currently dominated by other services. For example, Twitter recently launched a messaging format called Fleets that automatically deletes messages after 24 hours and notifies users if recipients take a screenshot, similar to other ephemeral messaging tools from Snapchat and Instagram. Twitter has also experimented with creating audio-sharing spaces à la Clubhouse.
Financial terms of the Squad deal weren’t disclosed.