Advertisement

Apple buys Twitter analytics firm Topsy for over $200 million

Apple already benefits greatly from social media hype surrounding its product reveals, and now the company is looking to get super serious about Twitter. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has bought up Topsy Labs Inc., a San Francisco-based social search and analytics firm. The purchase will reportedly set Apple back over $200 million.

Topsy offers a couple of commercial products, including Topsy Pro Analytics which is a paid version of the free Topsy keyword tracker available on the company's main website. Above just tracking mentions of certain words, Topsy's tools are designed to help determine whether chatter about a certain topic is positive or negative.

As is usually the case with these types of acquisitions, we're not likely to hear any specific plans for Topsy from Apple. Instead, when Apple integrates some crazy new social feature into a future version of iOS a year or two down the road or suddenly begins promoting apps to you based on your social chatter, we'll all remember Topsy and go "So that's what they were up to!" Still, TechCrunch offers some speculation.