

Ask HN: Is there a future for automatic summarization startups? - MojoJolo

I'm currently doing my MS thesis which is about automatic summarization. I'm also creating a web app (http://www.indiegogo.com/TextTeaser?a=1110234) to showcase it.<p>Some startups doing automatic summarization are Cruxbot (http://www.cruxbot.com/) and Summly. Like those apps, my thesis is also doing extraction only. It just extracts the most important sentences in an article that is determined by several features.<p>So, is there a future for the apps (including mine) that I mentioned? Or is there a future for automatic summarization in general?
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hbbio
Depends. I was familiar with [http://www.informatik.uni-
trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/a/...](http://www.informatik.uni-
trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/a/Amini:Massih=Reza.html) and to be
successful, it has to be a great product. I.e. find where the pain is and
solve it. Success lies on the product side, not the research...

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MojoJolo
Turning the research into a product is the problem. But I admire what Lytro
has done. His dissertation turned into a real product.

Hmmm. But what do you think about those apps that I mentioned? They have
pretty good algorithm inside, but are they great products?

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scotto
I believe there is, but like hbbio said it's a matter of the product. You can
make the algorithm into a product by offering it through an API to other
developers.

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MojoJolo
Yes, APIs can change an algorithm into a product. This was done by Diffbot
(<http://www.diffbot.com/>) which presents different text algorithms. I love
their API, and currently using it for my thesis.

