zite

From the minute I was able to put the personalized magazine app Zite on my iPhone, it became one of my indispensable tools.

Even if I glanced at it for just a few minutes at a bus stop, it was the best portal I had to the news I cared most about because it led me to stories from a wide variety of publications and on almost any topic I could want. And the more I used it, the more it knew what I wanted to read.

That was a year ago, and today, the iOS world can get its … Read more

Ever since CNN bought personalized mobile news aggregator Zite a year ago, people have tried to figure out the network's rationale. Today, it unveiled the first tangible benefit of the acquisition, CNN Trends, a snapshot of the current ten most talked-about topics.

Trends is "fueled" by Zite -- a service that provides personalized news for iPad, iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone 7 users across thousands of categories -- meaning that its algorithms are determining, in near-real time, those ten topics, and in each case, matching CNN.com's article on the subject with a balanced group of … Read more

Zite, the app designed to get you reading more of what you like, has moved to the Windows Phone 7 platform.

Yeah, you read that right.

While it may seem strange to expand the popular CNN-owned news app to a platform branded with the stigma of being the uncool kid at the mobile handset party, Zite CEO Mark Johnson sees it as a way to move into a market that Microsoft -- and Nokia -- are working hard to build.

"I think there's some real merit to what Microsoft is doing in the marketplace right now. Microsoft isn'… Read more

Aiming to work more closely with top-tier publishers, the popular news reader Zite today unveiled a platform that will prominently highlight stories from its media partners.

Zite, which works on iOS and Android devices, is built around the concept of giving people personalized news in discrete subject sections like "technology," "politics," "sports," and so on. People can choose as many sections as they like, and stories are algorithmically curated at least in part based on people's feedback about whether they do or don't like stories, publications, and even individual authors.

Now, with … Read more

When Zite's Mike Klaas examines usage data for his company's news aggregation app, something very interesting pops out: he can pretty much paint a picture of how his users are spending their days.

The upshot? People use Zite on their iPhones pretty much any time they have a few spare minutes during the workday and when they're in bed late at night. But in the evening, they settle in on their iPads for longer, more relaxed stretches of time.

The data are very clear on this, and it's a lesson that other news aggregators with both … Read more

Zite, a leading news aggregator app for iPad and iPhone, says it has struck its first section sponsorship deal--with Intel.

According to Zite CEO Mark Johnson, the chipmaker will sponsor the aggregator's technology section. In addition to seeing an Intel logo in the section banner (on the iPad), Zite users will see occasional sponsored content from Intel's MyLifeScoop site interspersed with the app's standard selection of articles from a wide variety of publications. The sponsorship is expected to last three months.

Although Zite has an existing pact in which women's sports apparel maker Lululemon Athletica creates … Read more

Here at Geek Gestalt, every day is different. The world of geek culture is broad--sometimes bewilderingly so. A typical year's coverage can easily include stories on everything from Burning Man to Lego, aviation to 3D printing, NASA to tech startups, MythBusters to Pixar movies, and so on.

That makes coming up with predictions for next year in culture a difficult task--but we're here to serve, so that's just we're offering. Of course, trying to settle on just five ideas for 2012 means leaving a lot of things out.

Still, prognosticating culture's next steps meant talking … Read more

It's been a great week to be a news junkie with an iPhone. On Tuesday, iPad darling Flipboard finally appeared on Apple's smart phone. Yesterday, Google launched its aggregator, Currents. And today, completing the trifecta, Zite unveiled its all-new iPhone app.

Previously, Zite had been available solely for the iPad. It established its place in the increasingly crowded aggregator field by focusing on personalization--giving users something of a Pandora-like experience with news: Like something and want to see more from a specific publication or writer? No problem.

Now, the company--which was bought by CNN in August for a … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Welcome to Day on the Job, a new series looking at what life is like inside the technology business. Over the coming months, I'll be visiting a wide variety of tech companies, with an emphasis on startups, each time shadowing one person for a whole day.

It could be the CEO, or it could be an engineer or a designer. Or anyone in between. The idea is not to uncover dark secrets or business plans, but instead to take readers alongside the people who are creating the products they use every day or may be using in the … Read more