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Like Google and Facebook before it, Twitter is opening an international office in Dublin. There's some debate over whether or not it will be a formal European headquarters, but Ireland is bragging about winning the battle over Europe's two other top tech towns, London and Berlin. The country's jobs agency, the Industrial Development Authority, broke the news in a tweet that started with a telling joke: "Ireland is trending."
It's true. Over the past few years, Ireland has worked hard and succeeded becoming Europe's tech hub. The Guardian reports that "IDA is trying to make Dublin the social media and online capital of Europe." Google helped start the trend by opening its international headquarters in Dublin in 2004. Others followed and Dublin now hosts hundreds of employees from Facebook, LinkedIn, Zynga, PayPal and eBay. Google alone has over 2,200 employees in Ireland's capital. But besides the adorable accents, what's the draw? "The simple fact of the matter is that Ireland remains a low-corporation tax country in Europe, and is in the top 10 of European countries in terms of ease of starting a business according to the World Bank," says Mike Butcher at TechCrunch Europe. "It's also English speaking, has a highly educated population and since the property bubble burst, it's much cheaper to locate an office there."