Yahoo have announced that they have bought Summly, a mobile news app which summarizes news from news outlets to present the news in a condensed form.
Summly, which was created in 2011 by the then 15 year old Nick D’Aloisio, will be shut down by Yahoo, but will be incorporated into Yahoo’s own mobile apps and sites.
This acquisition comes after Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who has made a number of small acquisitions like Summly and her focus is to bring young, fresh, mobile focused talent to the company. Initial reports say that Yahoo have acquired the app for under $30 million, but there has been no confirmation of the following.
Here’s the full release for Yahoo on their official blog:
“Today, we’re excited to share that we’re acquiring Summly, a mobile product company founded with a vision to simplify the way we get information, making it faster, easier and more concise.
At the age of 15, Nick D’Aloisio created the Summly app at his home in London. It started with an insight — that we live in a world of constant information and need new ways to simplify how we find the stories that are important to us, at a glance. Mobile devices are shifting our daily routines, and users have changed not only what, but how much information they consume. Yet 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 — we want easier ways to identify what’s important to us.
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. For publishers, the Summly technology provides a new approach to drive interest in stories and reach a generation of mobile users that want information on the go.
Nick and the Summly team are joining Yahoo! in the coming weeks. While the Summly app will close, you will see the technology come to life throughout Yahoo!’s mobile experiences soon. So stay tuned!
Mobile devices are at the center of how we engage with the people, experiences and interests we love. Across Yahoo!, we’re focused on creating beautiful experiences that people are excited to use every day — products that inspire and delight. We can’t wait to work with Nick and the Summly team to do just that. “