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Summify

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Summify
HeadquartersVancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)
  • Mircea Paşoi
  • Cristian Strat
Industry
URLsummify.com
Current statusDiscontinued

Summify was a social news aggregator founded by Mircea Paşoi and Cristian Strat, two former Google and Microsoft interns from Romania.[1][2] The service emails its users a periodic summary of news articles shared from their social networks based on relevance and importance.[3] The platform supported Twitter, Facebook, and Google Reader accounts.[4] Advisors to Summify include Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite and Ethan Anderson, CEO of Redbeacon.[2]

History

Cristian Strat and Mircea Paşoi, founders of Summify

In 2009, Paşoi and Strat created ReadFu, a plugin that provided a contextual summary and statistics of the target page of a hyperlink.[5] In January 2010, ReadFu was accepted into the Vancouver based start-up incubator Bootup Labs.[6] On March 20, 2010 the service was renamed as Summify and a private beta began.[7][8][9]

On August 11, 2010 Paşoi and Strat announced a new direction for the service. It would become a real-time social news reader that aggregates incoming news from social networks and displays articles by importance using social reactions.[10][11][12][13]

After receiving feedback, the team realized that its users enjoyed the short article digests Summify sent via email.[14] On March 22, 2011, the team announced that email digests would become the core part of the service[15] “Our users didn't really want another news reader, another destination site to check every day” say Paşoi and Strat.[16] The real-time news reader version of Summify was shut down three days later.[15]

Summify released a free app on the Apple App Store July 8, 2011.[17][18] The app allows users to consume their web summaries from iOS mobile devices.

Summify was acquired by Twitter on January 19, 2012. The service shut down on June 22.[19]

Investors

In March 2011, Summify completed a seed round of funding from the following investors:[1][2][16][20][21]

  • Rob Glaser, Founder of RealNetworks and Co-founder of SocialEyes
  • Accel Partners, represented by Andrew Braccia
  • Stewart Butterfield, Co-Founder of Tiny Speck and Flickr
  • Steve Olechowski, Co-Founder of FeedBurner
  • Boris Wertz, Founder of W Media Ventures, a Vancouver-based angel fund and COO of AbeBooks
  • Michael Edwards, Co-founder of Sosido Networks
  • Brent Holliday, Head of Technology Practice at Capital West Partners
  • Jim Fletcher, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital

Reception

Summify has been well received by popular websites such as TechCrunch, who say "if you only have time to read 5 stories a day, let Summify pick them."[22] It has also been featured in Time, The Globe and Mail, Mashable, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, and The Next Web.[12][23][24][25][26][27][28]

References

  1. ^ a b Lewis, Rob. Vancouver’s Summify filters the social web and raises a seed round TechVibes. March 30, 2011.
  2. ^ a b c Summify - Team Summify.
  3. ^ Brillson, Leila. Summify Distills Your News Into Five Bites of Personalized ‘Net Goodness Switched. March 31, 2011.
  4. ^ Gastall, Tom. Summify launches, receives first round of Funding StartupGazette. April 4, 2011.
  5. ^ Hello World! Summify. Dec 15, 2009.
  6. ^ Mann, Boris. New companies for Jan 2010 Bootup Labs. Dec 18, 2009.
  7. ^ Lewis, Rob. Bootup’s Summify renames and launches beta - 25 invites available TechVibes. March 26, 2010.
  8. ^ ReadFu becomes Summify Summify. March 20, 2010.
  9. ^ Summify in Private Beta Summify. March 24, 2011.
  10. ^ Lewis, Rob. Summify pivots into Social News Reader TechVibes. August 25, 2010.
  11. ^ Hold on, Summify is back! Summify. August 11, 2010.
  12. ^ a b Cosinschi, Eugenia. Social news-reader Summify raises funds to solve information overload VentureBeat. August 24, 2010.
  13. ^ Sprouter Weekly Sprouter. October 27. 2010.
  14. ^ Configure your Digest, Collapsed Stories and more Summify. Dec 19, 2010.
  15. ^ a b Bye Bye Summify Web, hello Web Summary! Summify. March 22, 2011.
  16. ^ a b Less Stories, More Funding! Summify. March 30, 2011.
  17. ^ Summify Launches iPhone App Summify. July 8, 2011.
  18. ^ Lewis, Rob. Summify launches iPhone App but will its founders stay in Canada? TechVibes. July 8, 2011.
  19. ^ Bishop, Bryan (24 May 2012). "Summify going offline June 22nd; accounts tied to Twitter will receive daily summary emails". The Verge. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
  20. ^ Lewis, Rob. Vancouver’s Summify lands seed round from W Media Ventures TechVibes. August 24, 2010.
  21. ^ Cook, John. Ex-Microsoft and Google interns launch Summify, with cash from Rob Glaser and others GeekWire. March 30, 2011.
  22. ^ Siegler, MG. If You Only Have Time To Read 5 Stories A Day, Let Summify Pick Them TechCrunch. March 30, 2011.
  23. ^ McMillan, Graeme.Exhausted by Social Media? Let Summify Read the Internet for YouTime Techland. March 31, 2011.
  24. ^ Friesen, Joe. Immigrant tech stars face hurdles in quest to start business in Canada The Globe and Mail. July 7, 2011.
  25. ^ Kessler, Sarah. Overwhelmed By News? Summify Picks The Top 5 Articles You Should Read “Mashable”. March 30, 2011.
  26. ^ Chan, Casey. Summify Gives You 5 Articles to Read a Day Based on Your Internet Reading Habits Gizmodo. March 30, 2011.
  27. ^ Gordon, Whitson. Summify Sends You the Day’s 5 Most Important Stories, Based on Your Reading Habits Lifehacker. April 1, 2011.
  28. ^ Hussey, Tris. Catch Up On the News With Summify. We Have Invite Codes! The Next Web. October 24, 2010.
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