Summify

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]

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

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]

gollark: It probably would go to a *government* which asked for it nicely.
gollark: UK.
gollark: Look at China. Their data gathering lets them run a significantly more efficient tyranny than they could otherwise.
gollark: You live somewhere which would probably love to be able to identify anyone who doesn't like them and track their location and contacts and whatnot. And with Google, *they probably could*!
gollark: I mean, mostly the companies focus on trying to get you to *not* care. I don't know who has much of an interest in making you worried about it.

References
  1. Lewis, Rob. Vancouver’s Summify filters the social web and raises a seed round TechVibes. March 30, 2011.
  2. 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. 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. Bye Bye Summify Web, hello Web Summary! Summify. March 22, 2011.
  16. 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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