Following Apple's $200 million purchase of social analytics firm Topsy earlier this week, a wide variety of analysts and pundits have been considering what Apple might do with the company. More than anything, Topsy is a search and analytics company, holding a number of search-related patents that could be implemented directly into the App or iTunes Stores to improve searches and discovery. One patent helps rank search results based on reputation and influence, which could be used to help higher quality apps rise to the top of App Store search results, for example. Another patent details the return of search results to include popular items related to a specific query on a social media site. While not directly related, a sim
