RaduTyrsina
News Team
Yahoo! has launched the news aggregation and summary app ‘News Digest’ for iOS users, which represents another shift to mobile under Marissa Meyer’s helm. Yahoo News Digest learns what users read and shapes the content to follow these trends. Yahoo’s product manager for mobile and emerging products Nick D’Aloisio said the following:
We wanted Yahoo News Digest to revisit a content format that when read, led you to a sense of completion and conclusiveness, much like reading the newspaper did
Before joining Yahoo, D’Aloisio founded Summly, a summarization and artificial intelligence technology used in a corresponding app. Yahoo purchased the start-up last year and has apparently incorporated some of these technologies in the fresh News Digest app. Here’s how the app is described in the iTunes store:
Yahoo News Digest provides a definitive summary of all the important, need-to-know news. Digests are delivered twice a day – once in the morning and once in the evening. All the top stories are summarized and presented with the key information that you need to stay on top of what’s happening. Each story is created from multiple sources to present the essential bits and pieces of information, known as “Atomsâ€. Atoms are key quotes, images, videos, stock tickers, maps, infographs, and Wikipedia excerpts among others. These atomic units provide a unique context to the news. Our stories are both algorithmically and hand curated to ensure high quality, and come with a textual summary.
Yahoo News Digest can be downloaded for free from the iTunes Store and has a size of 11.0 MB. It is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch but requires iOS 7.0 or later to function. Judging by the ratings it has received so far, it is expected to enjoy the same popularity like the acclaimed Weather app.
Source: Yahoo! News Digest on iTunes, iPhoneforums