Topsy

01 / WHAT IT BUILT

What the company did

Topsy was a San Francisco social-media analytics company founded in 2007 by Vipul Ved Prakash. It ran a Twitter search and analytics platform that aggregated tweets and other social data to break down market trends in real time — measuring engagement, influencers and user sentiment for marketers. As one of only four certified Twitter data resellers with access to the full tweet firehose back to 2006, it had indexed some 425 billion pieces of content. Apple acquired the company in December 2013 for more than $200 million.

03 / EVENT HISTORY

Events in the structured record

1. 2007
   Founded

   Vipul Ved Prakash founds Topsy in San Francisco in 2007 as a Twitter search and social analytics platform.

2. 2013
   Acquired by Apple

   Apple acquires Topsy in December 2013 for more than $200 million, reportedly to strengthen its search and Siri efforts with the firm's Twitter firehose access and analytics technology.

3. 2015
   Service shut down

   On December 15–16, 2015, Apple shuts down the Topsy service — announced with the tweet 'We've searched our last tweet' — and redirects topsy.com to an Apple support page on iOS 9 search; the team is absorbed into Apple's Spotlight and Safari search work.