Apple Buys Social Media Analyst Topsy for $200m

Apple Inc. has acquired San Francisco-based social media analysis and tracking firm Topsy in a $200m deal.

Founded in 2008, Topsy offers a real-time search engine, which indexes and ranks search results based on the most influential social media conversations about each specific term, topic, page or domain queried. In addition, the firm measures the influence of Twitter users from data such as historical retweets. Companies use results to gain real-time insights into a wide variety of issues, from spotting breaking news and identifying customer satisfaction issues, to gauging response to TV programming and understanding political sentiment.

According to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the story, the deal is likely to have been achieved with the approval of Twitter.

Apple spokesperson Kristin Huguet commented: 'Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.'

Web sites: www.apple.com and www.topsy.com .