British teenager and Summly founder D'Aloisio will join Yahoo! as part of the acquisition deal
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- The Summly app delivers snapshots of news stories to its users on mobile
- D'Aloisio started the company at 15 and gained support from Aston Kutcher and Stephen Fry
- In November, Yahoo! boss Marissa Mayer said the company would focus on mobile
Summly -- the brain child
of London-based boy genius Nick D'Aloisio -- delivers automated
snapshots of news stories to its users on mobile devices and formats
articles for the small screen.
D'Aloisio started the
company when he was 15 and quickly attracted investors, including Hong
Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing and Hollywood stars Ashton Kutcher and
Stephen Fry.
In a statement on the Summly website,
teenager D'Aloisio paid tribute to his friends, family and users while
adding that Yahoo! is the "perfect fit" for the start-up company, which
received Apple's Best Apps of 2012 award for Intuitive Touch.
Much ado over Yahoo
Was Marissa Mayer out of line?
In November, Yahoo boss
Marissa Mayer said the U.S. multinational would start focusing more on
mobile strategy particularly on news, sports and apps.
In a blog post announcing the deal,
Adam Cahan, senior vice president of mobile and emerging products at
Yahoo, wrote: "Mobile devices are at the center of how we engage with
the people experiences and interests we love."
Cahan added: "Most
articles and web pages were formatted for browsing with mouse clicks.
The ability to skim them on a phone or a tablet can be a real
challenge... Summly solves this by delivering snapshots of stories,
giving you a simple and elegant way to find the news you want, faster
than ever before."
Although the details of
the deal are not disclosed, the acquisition is likely to make a
millionaire of teenager D'Aloisio, who will now join Yahoo! Cahan asks
for Summly users to "stay tuned" as the app gets ready to reappear as
part of Yahoo!'s mobile arsenal.
No comments:
Post a Comment