Apple has bought its second company in as many weeks with the acquisition of Twitter analytics firm Topsy for $200 million. The consumer electronics giant snapped up PrimeSense, the firm behind the Xbox Kinect sensor, for $350 million last week. The Wall Street Journal said Apple paid $200 million for the firm, but the vendor has not confirmed the purchase price and a spokesperson told the publication, "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans." Topsy provides a searchable index of 450 billion tweets and this can give companies insight into trends.
The firm, led by Oxford graduate Duncan Greatwood, also indexes Facebook and Google+ updates.
It is also one of only a few companies with access to Twitter's so-called "firehose", the full stream of tweets posted to the service. It is thought the deal is part of a strategy by Apple to increase its influence in social media. Up until now, its main involvement has been its failed music social network Ping. The service closed in October 2012 after it failed to make an impact. Another use for the company could be improved app recommendations. Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi told Reuters the technology could be used in its App Store and iTunes applications. "With apps, it is really difficult to find good recommendations. It's much harder to see what people use and why," she said.
Apple acquired app-search tool Chomp last year for $50 million in a bid to strengthen its online app store. Apple's iAds platform could be another beneficiary of the technology as it could fine tune adverts based on social sentiment. The technology may also improve the way Siri interprets user queries. Topsy has not commented on the acquisition.
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