Yahoo Acquires Summly News App

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Yahoo Acquires Summly News App

engine

2:56 pm on Mar 25, 2013 (gmt 0)

An app created by a UK teenager has been acquired by web giant Yahoo in a deal the BBC understands to be worth "dozens of millions" of pounds.

Seventeen-year-old Nick D'Aloisio's Summly app summarises news stories from popular media companies.

Neither company would disclose the terms of the deal publicly.

The app itself will now close, but its features will be used in mobile products at Yahoo, where Mr D'Aloisio has been given a job.Yahoo Acquires Summly News App [bbc.co.uk]

Yahoo's announcement on Summly.

Today, we’re excited to share that we’re acquiring Summly, a mobile product company founded with a vision to simplify the way we get information, making it faster, easier and more concise.Yahoo! To Acquire Summly [ycorpblog.com]

lexipixel

2:51 am on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)

we’re excited to share that we’re acquiring Summly

...and killing it.

Nick and the Summly team are joining Yahoo! in the coming weeks. While the Summly app will close, you will see the technology come to life throughout Yahoo!’s mobile experiences soon. So stay tuned!

engine

9:44 am on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)

Yes, they want the technology integrated into Yahoo. It's a shame the app is going as it's quite useful. Clearly, Yahoo is hoping people will feel that it's useful when it's on Yahoo.

explorador

3:59 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)

I read about it: dangerous!

Sounds to me as a way to solve the scrapping content problem because the app creates a shorter version of the original text, article, news, etc. Sure some people will look into this technology or alike to create their own free unique content sites.... it sucks.

lexipixel

7:15 am on Mar 28, 2013 (gmt 0)

..but is it legal, (or even just "fair"), to scrape, automate rewriting and republish ?

Why Is That 17-Year-Old’s $30 Million News App Even Legal?
[business.time.com...]
I'm sure if it causes problems, the bots that do the news scraping, (and possibly other Yahoo bots if they are seen to be feeding a greedy app), will be blocked.