Twitter Confirms First R&D Facility In India

Twitter is all set to open an R&D facility in India, the company confirmed today. This is not really a surprise, since it comes weeks after Twitter had acquired a local startup known as Zipdial. It means that Twitter-Zipdial office in Bangalore will be more than just a base for salespeople - it'll also develop new Twitter products too. Rishi Jaitly, Twitter's head of India, confirmed the research facility in an interview today.

"It does constitute a big vote of confidence from Twitter at the global level in India," Jaitly told. "It is a big investment in India and emerging markets, and an engineering center is a big outcome of the deal."

Zipdial pioneered a system whereby companies can set up a phone number that Indians can make a "missed call" to (dial, but then hang up in order to avoid paying for the call) in order to receive certain information via SMS or a free call-back. This form of marketing sort of overlaps with Twitter's business side.

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Valerie Wagoner, the founder of ZipDial, also confirmed and stated "Twitter wants engineering teams based in emerging markets because we have empathy for users in these markets. This isn't a case of ideas from San Francisco, being built here; we are going to have full control over products."

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