Datasift tames Twitter overload for companies seeking specific data

Tweet-filtering technology startup Datasift is offering a special platform specifically for companies. Rather than filtering tweets for individuals, it combs through topics relevant to a company and displays the information in a single feed. CEO Nick Halstead demoed the service at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco today.

The new service could serve as a boon for companies that don’t have the computing firepower to handle the entirety of the Twitter information stream or to develop Twitter apps and slog through the app authorization process.

“This is about reducing streams in an automated fashion to get relevant content and taking a platform approach,” Halstead said. “It’s not meant to be an end product.”

The “media curation” platform allows users to enter a number of rules — they can be hashtags, names or any other significant keyword — for a search and to scour the internet for all things related to those topics. Datasift pulls in new information from places like Twitter just a few seconds after it is pushed out to the rest of the Internet.

The Reading, England-based company was founded just last month and has already raised $1.5 million. Halstead founded Tweetmeme before beginning work on Datasift.