“CNN announced Tuesday that it is acquiring Zite, a Canadian tablet software developer,” Mark Milian reports for CNN.
“Zite offers an iPad application that can build a personalized magazine based on someone’s interests and social media feeds,” Milian reports. “The app can determine users’ favorite topics from which articles they choose to read and how they rate each one, similar to the way the Pandora Internet radio station customizes music playlists to listeners’ tastes.”
Milian reports, “CNN plans to operate Zite as an independent business, said KC Estenson, senior vice president and general manager of CNN.com, on Monday. In addition to financing Zite’s ongoing development, CNN intends to promote the software on the news organization’s website and television programs, Estenson said. The Zite app, which is free, will not contain advertisements at first. Zite recently mined app-usage data for a report that showed users’ interests by state, information that can be attractive to marketers.”
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“Zite currently offers only an iPad app. The developers plan to make versions for other operating systems, but the Apple tablet will remain its primary platform, said Mark Johnson, who joined the outfit as CEO four months ago from Microsoft, on Monday,” Milian reports. “The personalization technology, which Zite has been developing for six years, will eventually be integrated into CNN’s own software, Estenson said.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward Weber” for the heads up.]