Twitter Inc. has acquired social media talent agency The Niche Project Inc. (Niche).

Although the price was not officially disclosed, reports suggest that it was $30 million with possible earn-outs and employment contracts taking the price closer to $60 million.

New York and San Francisco-based Niche is self described as a “leading network for social network creators.” Part public relations agency, part talent management agency, part advertising middleman, the company works with content creators primarily on Vine in connecting them with brands that want to see their products exposed to the content creators followers. At the time of writing Niche claims to work with over 100 brands and agencies, and has over 6,703 content creators signed to the network.

Niche provides a suite of services for its talent beyond money making opportunities, including a cross-platform analytics monitor that allows users to track their followers, actions and activities, engagement tools to keep users connected with fans, and a showcase to promote their offerings.

Founded in June 2013, Niche had raised $3.1 million prior to acquisition in angel and seed rounds that included Slow Ventures, Gary Vaynerchuk, Kevin Colleran, Box Group, WME, Advancit Capital and others.

Twitter’s Product Developer Baljeet Singh said on the Twitter Blog that Niche has been a key partner to both Twitter and Vine over the last year and that they were excited to have signed an agreement to acquire the company.

At first glance it appears to be a strange acquisition, after all Twitter isn’t a company that many would expect to own what is essentially a talent agency. However if you consider Niche primarily as an advertising broker and promotions platform for Vine stars, the deal makes a lot more sense.

Since acquiring Vine pre-launch in October 2012 Twitter hasn’t really done anything at all to monitize it; sure, from humble beginnings Vine has grown exponentially under Twitter’s ownership, but good will doesn’t pay the bills.

The question though, is product placement or demonstrations on the clips of Vine stars really going to be a huge revenue stream for Twitter going forward?

It’s unlikely, but it’s definitely a growing niche and better for Twitter to play middleman and take the cut when linking brands to stars than a third party. If Twitter can also leverage Niche’s offering further across not only Vine, but on Twitter, and even into YouTube terroritory (although focusing on Vine, Niche does offer services for YouTube creators) who knows: in 5 or 10 years time Twitter might become as well know as a talent agency to online stars as it is for its core microblogging platform.

Image courtesy of: Samuels Teacup