CNN picking up Vancouver’s Zite iPad app?
If the reports floating around the web are true, Zite will soon have some good news to share.
The Vancouver tech startup behind a popular iPad app is reportedly being bought by CNN. According to Techvibes, the price tag is between $20 million and $25 million.
The Zite app, a personalized news aggregator, hit Apple’s iTunes Store in March.
But soon after launch, media heavyweights, including the Associated Press and the Washington Post, sent Zite a letter charging that the app is “plainly unlawful” and asking that the company stop infringing their copyrights. Zite responded by saying it was complying with publishers’ demands.
Reached by phone today (August 23), Zite founder and president Ali Davar declined to comment on the reports to the Straight.
In April, Davar, then the startup’s CEO, described in a Geek Speak interview how Zite’s personalization works:
It learns from what you click on and bypass. It learns from how much time you spend on an item. It learns what your tastes and interests are, like the nuances of what you find interesting. So, it doesn’t just learn about topics that you’re interested in, but learns that you like editorials or analysis, that you like left-wing blogs, not just political blogs. It picks up stuff like that.
Zite, whose roots are at the University of British Columbia, is now helmed by CEO Mark Johnson. The startup's PR rep emailed the Straight today this statement from Johnson:
We're flattered to be part of such an interesting rumor, but we don't comment on speculation.
The company’s first product was Worio, a semantic-search site that launched in 2008.
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