
Flipboard is acquiring Zite from CNN - robdoherty2
http://gigaom.com/2014/03/05/flipboard-is-acquiring-zite-from-cnn-forming-broad-ad-and-content-partnership-with-news-giant/
======
hnriot
This is a real shame. Zite is fabulous and useful whereas flipboard is
annoying. I long ago uninstalled flipboard because of the failed real world
metaphor. I don't need my software apps trying to ape a dead technology of
dead trees. Zite is fabulous, modern and highly usable.

I'm glad for the people involved if this is a good exit for them, but as a
user I'm worried that flipboard will ruin things.

~~~
caseyf7
Looks like they are shutting Zite down:
[http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/cnn-sells-zite-news-
app...](http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/cnn-sells-zite-news-app-to-
flipboard-for-60-mil-as-part-of-broader-partnership-1201125717/)

~~~
jasonkolb
That just ruined my lunch. Seriously, Zite is awesome, only "recommender" that
actually works for me. Prismatic, Flipboard, everything else I've tried--they
all suck. Only Zite consistently gives me things I haven't seen that I'm
actually interested in.

Welp, time to dust off my recommender algorithms and build something I
suppose. If anyone's interested in joining, ping me.

~~~
mikeklaas
FWIW, our plan is to integrate the Zite recommendation engine into Flipboard
(and import your Zite data). I've love to have your feedback as we build it.

~~~
bitcuration
Can you try to at least leave Zite running before you finishing integrate zite
algorithm into flipboard? What am I going to do in the meantime without Zite,
sigh.

Flipboard is useless at its current state. Please explain this to your new
boss. Really appreciate it.

~~~
mikeklaas
Our every intention is to leave Zite running until we can build something at
least as good at Flip. I know it's sad to lose a product you love (it's sadder
to lose one you've built), but I'll try my hardest to make it up to you.

------
mikeklaas
I posted this in another thread, but this is my statement on the acquisition:
[http://blog.zite.com/2014/03/05/zite-is-flipping-
out/](http://blog.zite.com/2014/03/05/zite-is-flipping-out/)

Happy to answer any questions.

------
csixty4
Zite has been my app of choice when I'm catching up on the news over
breakfast. It sounds like Flipboard is going to integrate Zite's
personalization algorithms into Flipboard, but I'm skeptical. Hoping for the
best.

~~~
rjtavares
A mix of Zite's better personalization options and Flipboard's better design
would be perfect.

~~~
csixty4
It would be really cool if they could make it work.

------
rch
I installed Flipboard while looking for a replacement for the old Google
Currents widget on my Nexus 7. Fb might be better for content, or not, but I
still really miss the other widget. Swiping through headlines in Currents was
almost fun, and I could preselect for content sources that would be available
to read offline.

Ultimately, most of the content that's available is unremarkable, so I tend to
be very critical of the overall experience of consuming it. Conversely, a
source that makes even modest improvements in efficiency or presentation can
instantly become part of my daily routine. The old Currents was far from
perfect, but at least it felt like progress.

------
bitcuration
I just hope flipboard does not mean to shutdown zite. Zite is part of my life
now, while I haven't open flipboard more than once or twice a week.

After watched the movie "her", I had thought about zite would be the Samantha
in my news consumption world, "who" has tuned up and evolved very much to my
taste over years. I could careless about flipboard's fancy layout.

This is the worst news after greader shutdown, wtf. Unfortunately trap.it
doesn't quite work out, seriously limited my choice.

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thecodefoundry
I'm a huge fan of Zite and use it every single day as my morning paper, lunch
reading and late evening reading. I've tried Flipboard in the past but it
didn't hold a candle to my needs like Zite did/does. I'm hoping that this
doesn't spell the end of the Zite experience.

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soapdog
I am still using a HP Touchpad webOS tablet mostly because of some apps that I
think are just great. Among them the webOS Zite client I think is the most
polished client for that service in any platform. The Android client doesn't
come near in usability. I just hope it keeps working...

~~~
zwieback
My TouchPad is dual-boot and I think the webOS client was much better but most
of the time I just run Zite on Android now.

Anyway, sad to see Zite go. It was so much better than Flipboard.

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mimighost
As a heavy user for both apps, I should say I am glad this is happening.

Though Flipboard and Zite may seem similar to each other from the first sight,
underneath I think they take very different approaches.

From a user's perspective, I believe Zite relies more on an algorithmic
approach while Flipboard is more hand-tuned. As a result, Flipboard has better
article quality, a result from a controlled list of resources. Zite certainly
covers wider topic spectrum, but I am bothered all the time when it recommends
me something like a newsletter announcement for a product update, which
becomes worse when you subscribe to a rare topic.

A better personalized Flipboard, with more channels to choose from, is the
best outcome of this acquire.But I will miss the old Zite now and then.

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declan
Zite is a strong product, and I wish the team well. (Disclaimer: Mark Johnson
is a friend, and deserves some time off.)

This is admittedly self-serving but appropriate for HN: If you're interested
in an alternative, I quit my job at CBS yesterday to work on a new SF bay area
startup that's aiming to provide personalized news with zero configuration.
You can sign up to be notified of the beta at
[http://recent.io/](http://recent.io/)

~~~
bitcuration
Bravo!

~~~
declan
Thanks! It's exciting and kind of scary at the same time. Hope you like it
(once it ships!).

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btrautsc
in a past life I spent a lot of time concerned about how M&A would unfold in
this space... This is interesting as we never had the sense Zite had
particularly innovative tech, whereas Flipboard needed a 'horseman' to acquire
them.

This may ultimately be more of a licensing/ partnership between CNN &
Flipboard... In hindsight I wasted a lot of that time.

~~~
mikeklaas
As Zite's CTO, it's interesting to see how the tech is perceived externally.

For whom did you work in a previous life, out of curiousity?

~~~
btrautsc
I was part of two failed attempts at personalizing news/ creating communities
of topic expertise around news. Both ended in the many tens of thousands of
users, and acqui-hire talks (not with either Zite or Flipboard).

My thought on the tech was it was consistently good, the product was simple
and easy to use, and worked very well at aggregating subject based articles
(I'm sure there was much more behind the scenes that would have scared us at
the time)...

we were trying to do not only the smart aggregation, but create hooks into
reading communities to encourage an atmosphere like HN - instead of mystical
karma points, you would see _btrautsc; expert in X, knowledgable in Y, novice
in Z_ and so forth. Like I said, it ultimately died a timely death.

Congratulations on the deal by the way!

~~~
mikeklaas
Thanks btrautsc! The smart social reading experience sounds interesting even
if it didn't work out.

~~~
btrautsc
quite welcome. and thank you, I'm in the bay area for the next few months,
maybe we could connect sometime.

~~~
mikeklaas
Sure. Email in profile.

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antr
Anyone here think's the "Technology" stories in Zite are just HN's RSS feed?

~~~
mikeklaas
It's not, but we trained the classifier+collaborative filter, and we're all HN
readers, so it's not surprising it picks up HN stories consistently.

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amaks
Hopefully they will fix this mess which is Zite on Android.

