Reading news on the go on a smartphone needs to be really better than just excepts or even delivering the whole content to a mobile user. Summly iPhone app is trying to solve that and so far it’s promising. People just skim-read the headlines with hardly anyone using their smart-phone going further and scrolling through a full article-that is a problem.
The company wants to redefine news for the mobile world with algorithmically generated summaries from thousands of sources. The app pulls news articles from hundreds of online sources, then its algorithm pulls out the key points and summarises them into 400-character paragraphs for mobile reading.
Summly sticks with summarizing news articles just as it promises to do. You choose what subject categories you want to follow-Technology, Science, or Sports — and what sources within those categories you want news from. You can share a summary by tapping and holding anywhere onscreen. From the menu you can share via Twitter, Facebook, or email, or save a summary.
Summly’s design includes a range of gestures that allow you to dive into the full article, share your summaries, read a longer summary or just keep browsing the succinct news that it provides.
The initial version of Summly was downloaded by over 200,000 users. Summly has been embraced by news and entertainment media since it’s iPhone launch early this month.
Nick D’Aloisio, 15 years of age, launched Summly in December 2011 as a tech summarization prototype. In November, 2012, he received US$ one million in new venture funding for Summly from several celebritites such as Yoko Ono, Ashton Kutcher and Stephen Fry, in addition to Li Ka-shing.
D’Aloisio has been covered by several major publications, including ReadWrite.com, BusinessInsider.com, Wired, Forbes, The Huffington Post, and TechCrunch.
