Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,290
30,367



topsy.png
Apple has purchased social analytics firm Topsy for more than $200 million, reports The Wall Street Journal. According to its website, Topsy is a social search and analytics company that partners with Twitter to maintain an index of Tweets going back to 2006.

Topsy also makes products to search and analyze trends on social websites like Twitter and Google+. With its analytics tools, companies can analyze keywords by several different metrics such as activity, exposure, geography, or general sentiment. The Topsy website also serves as a search engine that looks through shared content on social networks and ranks results based on a social influence algorithm.
Topsy specializes in data from Twitter, offering tools to analyze tweets and other information to help track consumer sentiment. Its tools can decipher how often a specific term is tweeted, find an influential person on a specific subject, or measure the exposure of an event or campaign.

The company is one of a handful of Twitter's partners who have access to the so-called "firehose"--the full stream of all tweets posted to the service. Topsy competes with DataSift Inc. and Gnip Inc. to analyze and resell this data to customers.
An Apple spokesperson confirmed the acquisition with the company's standard line: "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple could possibly use Topsy's technology within iTunes Radio, and it could also be useful in the App Store, delivering content recommendations based on Twitter trends. It could also be used as a way to bolster iAd, providing data to marketers to serve targeted ads in iRadio.

Apple's purchase of Topsy comes after several other acquisitions earlier this year focused on mapping. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Apple made a total of 15 acquisitions during fiscal 2013.

Article Link: Apple Acquires Social Analytics Firm Topsy for $200 Million
 

davidec

macrumors 6502
Jan 31, 2008
425
450
A quick 200 mil? Topsy investors must be over the moon to see a return on their money.
 

AMDeeb

macrumors newbie
Mar 14, 2013
23
0
Lebanon
Apple acquires a company for more than $200m:

"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

Apple acquires a company for $1b:

"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

Apple acquires Google:

"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

:confused:
 

9000

macrumors 6502a
Sep 29, 2013
519
0
Hyrule
Actually I wish Apple would team up with Yahoo. I'd love to see Google have some real competition. And Microsoft isn't it.

Ew, they'd have to be careful. Yahoo tries to market itself by giving people numerous Yahoo toolbars via malware. And about half of its users seem to be robots sending spam mail.
 

akm3

macrumors 68020
Nov 15, 2007
2,252
279
Apple acquires a company for more than $200m:

"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

Apple acquires a company for $1b:

"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

Apple acquires Google:

"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

:confused:

Good point. ALL technology companies are 'smaller technology companies'.
 

Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,084
31,015
Ew, they'd have to be careful. Yahoo tries to market itself by giving people 4 Yahoo toolbars in Internet Explorer to use its bad search engine (which is actually Bing).

Well I'd want them to work with Yahoo to make Yahoo better (and provide better services to iOS), not just utilize Yahoo's existing services. Jony Ive and Marissa Mayer are friends so it could happen. :)
 

grayskies

macrumors regular
Nov 9, 2006
135
45
thumbs up

I don't have any idea how this will benefit Apple, but I really like it when they acquire companies. I guess I dream that this is another step towards something new and interesting.
 

Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,084
31,015
He has no clue. He is just buying everything he can put his arms on hoping that this will spur growth but it ain't happening.

At least he wasn't stupid enough to buy Motorola Mobility. :D
 

dumastudetto

macrumors 601
Aug 28, 2013
4,990
7,130
Los Angeles, USA
Really excited to see where Apple goes with this acquisition. There are a million possibilities but one thing is for sure nobody could take advantage of the technology in the way Apple will do.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.