BUYING GUIDE.
Web denizens are turning to social sites to find and consume news more and more. Smartr, an iPhone app released in mid-December, is going after the social news crowd who turn to Twitter for their daily news fix.Smartr for iPhone [iTunes link], which comes from natural language processing startup Factyle, gathers all the tweets in your Twitter timeline and determines which of them have meaningful content. The app then fetches the web pages housed within tweets and optimizes the content -- text, images and video -- for iPhone.
Instead of seeing tweets, the Smartr user views a Twitter feed filled with news snippets. "It's a lens on top of your Twitter Feed," says Factyle founder Temo Chalasani.
Users can click on updates in the filtered Twitter stream to read a Smartr reformatted, ad-free version of the article, share it with Facebook, Tumblr or Posterous, and choose to save it in-app or via Instapaper or Read it Later.
The application is best suited for news junkies who want an experience that automatically filters out checkins, badges, stickers and updates of the same ilk -- updates the startup considers "Twitter spam."
Poorly formatted articles with excessive ads will also get caught in Smartr's spam filter, according to Chalasani.
The still-nascent application has a small but highly engaged audience, says Chalasani. App users are making Smartr their primary way of consuming content, and the team added in support for Twitter lists after its community clamored for the feature, he says.
Smartr just released an API, and next up is an iPad app slated to go live in 10 to 14 days. Future plans include feature updates to make Smartr even smarter -- think automatic queries that pull in Twitter, Facebook or other web info on people mentioned in articles. The company may also add price tags to the applications down the line.
The team behind Smartr spent two years building their natural language processing technology and was awarded a $160,000 grant from the Canadian government in the process, according to Chalasani. Factyle has since opted to focus on applying its technology to mobile to engineer a more fluid content consumption experience.
Factyle is operating on funds supplied by friends and family, but is actively seeking outside funding. The startup's line of mobile applications fall within the same category has those offered by the arguably more flashy Flipboard or Pulse. Factyle is betting that a significant pool of users will prefer the utility of Smartr over the magazine-style of the others.
Mashable by Jennifer Van Grove
For more information
For more on retail outlets, check out our where to buy Bestsellers in Phones
article.- Top 10 mobile phones of 2009 revealed
- Apple's stock hits new high as gadget buzz builds
- Buying Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Unlocked Phone with U.S. 3G, 3.2 MP Camera, GPS, Wi-Fi, and 8 GB MicroSD Card
- Nokia N97 Unlocked Phone, Touchscreen, 3G, 5 MP Camera, A-GPS, 32 GB, MicroSD Slot, and Integrated Ovi Applications
- Windows Mobile Losing Ground as Competitors Grow iPhone, BlackBerry, Razr Most Popular Phones in '09
- Ford's In-Car Wi-Fi Is a Trend Toward Internet Everywhere
- App Store Business Is Booming for iPhone Developers
- Christmas could spur mobile e-commerce in Europe
- BlackBerry Service Hit by Second Outage in a Week
- Buying MyPhone Express, Brand New!
- Buying Bestsellers in Cell Phones Guide
- Buying Guide Bestsellers in Cell Phones
- Buying BlackBerry® 7290 smartphones
- Buying The BlackBerry® 7250 smartphone
- Buying The BlackBerry® 7100i smartphone
0 comments:
Post a Comment