Apple has reportedly acquired Topsy Labs Inc., a data-analytics firm, to spot trending discussions in Twitter.
According to sources of Bloomberg, the tech-giant closed the deal for $200 million to get hold of the technology used by Topsy Labs to monitor trends that go viral in the social networking site Twitter real-time.
Topsy Labs is a San Francisco-based social search and analytics company that is employed by different companies to evaluate consumer reaction on Twitter. It is a certified Twitter comrade, which stores an inclusive index of tweets posted since 2006.
Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer’s lead analyst focusing on social media marketing, said that Apple can benefit a lot from its acquisition of Topsy because from that point forward, they can track trending tweets and integrate it on their upcoming updates, products, and many more.
“A key point is they are one of the few companies that has access to the Twitter fire hose and can do real-time analysis of the trends and discussions happening on Twitter,” she told Bloomberg.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based company is known to buy technologies that it can use in enhancing the company’s services and making better upcoming products.
When asked for comments about the company's latest acquisition, Kristin Huguet, spokesperson of Apple, did not confirm anything. However, she told Bloomberg, “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”
Topsy Lab’s CEO Duncan Greatwood didn’t respond to request for comments immediately.
Should Twitter be threatened? Probably not. According to the Wall Street Journal, Twitter may have approved the acquisition.
Topsy Labs is the latest addition on the new technologies Apple bought. It recently confirmed its $350 million acquisition of the Xbox Kinect technology developed by Primesense which it might be using for the Apple TV.
