Social data provider Gnip has announced a partnership with Tumblr where they will have full access to the publishing platform's firehose - the full feed of Tumblr's 50 million new posts each day - and making the information available for business analysis.

Tumblr, which is growing rapidly and a company that I believe is the next major acquisition target (we're looking at you Facebook now that Twitter snapped up Posterous), currently receives over 15 billion monthly pageviews - that's a lot of data. Couple that with other data that reveals that Tumblr is only second to Facebook is social engagement and we start to see the value in this partnership.

"Our goal is to be the single source of record for all public conversations online," said Chris Moody, President and COO of Gnip. "As one of the most vibrant online communities in the world, there's an enormous amount of public conversation taking place on Tumblr. We're thrilled to be able to make this available for the first time."

Tumblr join several other noteworthy Web and technology companies including Twitter, WordPress, Disqus, IntenseDebate, StockTwits and Newsgator in partnering with Gnip to make their public data available for analysis.