Summify
 | This article contains content that is written like an advertisement. (January 2012) |
 | |
| Headquarters | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
|---|---|
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Founder(s) |
|
| Industry | |
| URL | summify |
| Current status | Discontinued |
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 emailed 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[edit]
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 some feedback that the users preferred article digests by email more than the real-time news reader version, Summify discontinued the news reader version.
Summify released a free app on the Apple App Store on July 8, 2011.[14][15] 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, 2012.[16]
Investors[edit]
In March 2011, Summify completed a seed round of funding from the following investors:[1][2][17][18][19]
- 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[edit]
Summify has been well received by popular websites such as TechCrunch. It has also been featured in Time, The Globe and Mail, Mashable, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, and The Next Web.[12][20][21][22][23][24][25]
References[edit]
- ^ a b Lewis, Rob. Vancouver’s Summify filters the social web and raises a seed round TechVibes. March 30, 2011.
- ^ a b c Summify - Team Summify.
- ^ Brillson, Leila. Summify Distills Your News Into Five Bites of Personalized ‘Net Goodness Switched. March 31, 2011.
- ^ Gastall, Tom. Summify launches, receives first round of Funding StartupGazette. April 4, 2011.
- ^ Hello World! Summify. Dec 15, 2009.
- ^ Mann, Boris. New companies for Jan 2010 Bootup Labs. Dec 18, 2009.
- ^ Lewis, Rob. Bootup’s Summify renames and launches beta - 25 invites available TechVibes. March 26, 2010.
- ^ ReadFu becomes Summify Summify. March 20, 2010.
- ^ Summify in Private Beta Summify. March 24, 2011.
- ^ Lewis, Rob. Summify pivots into Social News Reader TechVibes. August 25, 2010.
- ^ Hold on, Summify is back! Summify. August 11, 2010.
- ^ a b Cosinschi, Eugenia. Social news-reader Summify raises funds to solve information overload VentureBeat. August 24, 2010.
- ^ Sprouter Weekly Sprouter. October 27. 2010.
- ^ Summify Launches iPhone App Summify. July 8, 2011.
- ^ Lewis, Rob. Summify launches iPhone App but will its founders stay in Canada? TechVibes. July 8, 2011.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Less Stories, More Funding! Summify. March 30, 2011.
- ^ Lewis, Rob. Vancouver’s Summify lands seed round from W Media Ventures TechVibes. August 24, 2010.
- ^ Cook, John. Ex-Microsoft and Google interns launch Summify, with cash from Rob Glaser and others GeekWire. March 30, 2011.
- ^ McMillan, Graeme.Exhausted by Social Media? Let Summify Read the Internet for YouTime Techland. March 31, 2011.
- ^ Friesen, Joe. Immigrant tech stars face hurdles in quest to start business in Canada The Globe and Mail. July 7, 2011.
- ^ Kessler, Sarah. Overwhelmed By News? Summify Picks The Top 5 Articles You Should Read “Mashable”. March 30, 2011.
- ^ Chan, Casey. Summify Gives You 5 Articles to Read a Day Based on Your Internet Reading Habits Gizmodo. March 30, 2011.
- ^ Gordon, Whitson. Summify Sends You the Day’s 5 Most Important Stories, Based on Your Reading Habits Lifehacker. April 1, 2011.
- ^ Hussey, Tris. Catch Up On the News With Summify. We Have Invite Codes! The Next Web. October 24, 2010.