Summify Explained

Summify
Location:Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Area Served:Worldwide
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 their relevance and importance.[3] The platform supported Twitter, Facebook, and Google Reader accounts.[4]

History

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 to 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.

In March 2011, Summify completed a Seed round, with investors including Rob Glaser, Accel Partners, and Stewart Butterfield.[14] [15] [16]

Summify received coverage from various news and media outlets such as TechCrunch. It was also featured in various news platforms, such as Time, The Globe and Mail, Mashable, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, and The Next Web.[17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]

Summify released a free app on the Apple App Store on July 8, 2011.[23] [24] The app allowed users to read their web summaries from iOS mobile devices.

Summify was acquired by Twitter on January 19, 2012. The service shut down soon after, on June 22, 2012.[25]

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Lewis . Rob . March 30, 2011 . Vancouver's Summify filters the social web and raises a seed round . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110401203903/http://www.techvibes.com/blog/vancouvers-summify-filters-the-social-web-and-raises-a-seed-round-2011-03-30 . April 1, 2011 . TechVibes.
  2. Web site: Summify Team . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20180108170839/http://summify.com/team/ . January 8, 2018 . Summify.
  3. Brillson, Leila. Summify Distills Your News Into Five Bites of Personalized ‘Net Goodness Switched. March 31, 2011.
  4. Web site: Gastall . Tom . April 4, 2011 . Summify launches, receives first round of Funding . StartupGazette . July 4, 2011 . April 8, 2011 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110408093233/http://www.startupgazette.com/2011/04/summify-launches-receives-first-round-of-funding/ . dead .
  5. Web site: December 15, 2009 . Hello World! . Summify.
  6. News: Mann . Boris . December 18, 2009 . New Companies for Jan 2010 . Bootup Labs . July 4, 2011 . December 19, 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20091219230655/http://blog.bootuplabs.com/2009/12/18/new-companies-for-jan-2010/ . dead .
  7. Web site: Lewis . Rob . 2021-11-29 . Bootup's Summify renames and launches beta - 25 invites available . https://web.archive.org/web/20160402200311/http://www.techvibes.com/blog/bootups-summify-renames-and-launches-beta-25-invites-available . April 2, 2016 . TechVibes . en-US.
  8. Web site: ReadFu becomes Summify . https://web.archive.org/web/20100401073004/http://blog.summify.com/post/459896262/readfu-becomes-summify . April 1, 2010 . Summify.
  9. Web site: Summify in Private Beta . https://web.archive.org/web/20100403011646/http://blog.summify.com/post/469721962/summify-in-private-beta . April 3, 2010 . Summify.
  10. Lewis, Rob. Summify pivots into Social News Reader TechVibes. August 25, 2010.
  11. Web site: Hold on, Summify is back! . https://web.archive.org/web/20100815061526/http://blog.summify.com/post/938300069/hold-on-summify-is-back . August 15, 2010 . Summify.
  12. Cosinschi, Eugenia. Social news-reader Summify raises funds to solve information overload VentureBeat. August 24, 2010.
  13. News: October 27, 2010 . Sprouter Weekly . Sprouter . 2011-07-04 . 2011-08-11 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110811075340/http://sprouter.com/weekly/2010-10-27 . dead .
  14. Web site: Less Stories, More Funding! . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110402151028/http://blog.summify.com/post/4211150644/less-stories-more-funding . April 2, 2011 . Summify.
  15. News: Lewsi . Rob . August 24, 2010 . Vancouver's Summify lands seed round from W Media Ventures . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20160304210307/http://www.techvibes.com/blog/vancouvers-summify-lands-seed-round-from-w-media-ventures . March 4, 2016 . TechVibes.
  16. Cook, John. Ex-Microsoft and Google interns launch Summify, with cash from Rob Glaser and others GeekWire. March 30, 2011.
  17. McMillan, Graeme.Exhausted by Social Media? Let Summify Read the Internet for YouTime Techland. March 31, 2011.
  18. News: Friesen . Joe . July 7, 2011 . Immigrant tech stars face hurdles in quest to start business in Canada . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110711134145/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/immigrant-tech-stars-face-hurdles-in-quest-to-start-business-in-canada/article2090504/ . July 11, 2011 . The Globe and Mail.
  19. Web site: Kessler . Sarah . March 30, 2011 . Overwhelmed By News? Summify Picks The Top 5 Articles You Should Read . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110423021402/http://mashable.com/2011/03/30/summify/ . April 23, 2011 . Mashable.
  20. Chan, Casey. Summify Gives You 5 Articles to Read a Day Based on Your Internet Reading Habits Gizmodo. March 30, 2011.
  21. Gordon, Whitson. Summify Sends You the Day’s 5 Most Important Stories, Based on Your Reading Habits Lifehacker. April 1, 2011.
  22. Hussey, Tris. Catch Up On the News With Summify. We Have Invite Codes! The Next Web. October 24, 2010.
  23. Web site: Summify Launches iPhone App . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110711133747/http://blog.summify.com/post/7381180505/summify-iphone-app . July 11, 2011 . Summify.
  24. News: Lewis . Rob . July 8, 2011 . Summify launches iPhone App but will its founders stay in Canada? . TechVibes . 2011-07-09 . 2011-07-13 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110713045902/http://www.techvibes.com/blog/summify-launches-iphone-app-but-will-its-founders-stay-in-canada-2011-07-08 . dead .
  25. Web site: Bishop. Bryan. Summify going offline June 22nd; accounts tied to Twitter will receive daily summary emails. The Verge. 17 July 2012. 24 May 2012.