Apple buys Topsy, could integrate it into iTunes Radio

Apple might robotically give customers of its iTunes Radio provider actual-time details about songs or artists trending on Twitter, or could offer a wide variety of different actual-time prognoses, thanks to its mentioned purchase today of social-media analytics firm Topsy Labs.

Consistent with the Wall boulevard Journal (subscription required), Apple paid greater than $200 million for San Francisco-primarily based Topsy, which develops tools that assist firms in mining Twitter for sentiment diagnosis.

Topsy continuously issues data about how data has unfolded throughout Twitter during giant events comparable to typhoon Sandy or the super Bowl. Many corporations use that information to rise to be mindful methods to reach present or potential shoppers. Topy’s tools can expose how frequently a specific time period is tweeted and who is doing the tweeting.

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Neither Apple nor Topsy right away replied to a request for comment. Alternatively, Apple established the acquisition to the Journal, although it failed to offer any motive for the deal. “Apple buys smaller know-how firms on occasion,” the corporate advised the Journal, “and we most often do not discuss our objective or plans.”

Even if Topsy is a Twitter companion with getting right of entry to the social community’s “firehouse,” the whole move of tweets from more than 220 million Twitter users, it’s not clear exactly what Apple may do with the analytics firm. The Journal speculated that the tech giant might smartly bring extra real-time data about songs or artists trending on Twitter.

But the deal may be more about helping Apple have in mind what its thousands and thousands of customers are announcing about it, stated Brian Belau, an analyst at Gartner. Although Belau had no direct details about the acquisition, he mentioned that Apple might view services like Topsy to “determine how to inject them into the social conversation.”

For some time, stated Belau, Apple has been a “moderately anti-social” company in that they haven’t put too much emphasis on interacting with clients immediately. But, Belau mentioned, “I believe a company like Apple unquestionably cannot ignore what being has mentioned in social at present…You want to recognize who your customers are and what they’re doing.”

Indeed, Belau brought that it is smart for Apple to purchase Topsy. “There maybe a couple of times the place they have been caught off guard,” he mentioned. “Maybe having an instrument like this might help them better put together” next time.