Zite

=Zite = toc  Zite, an example of a new class of personalized magazines apps, launched March 9, 2011, and was deemed “iPad’s Smartest Magazine Yet” by Mashable!. Personalized magazines offer tablet owners a way to customize web content into a manageable digital interface. Instead of searching, bookmarking, and opening multiple tabs, these apps consolidate web content in an easy to browse, attractive format, with pages that can be flipped (swiped) through like a traditional magazine. Zite, which is only available on the iPad, was developed by Avi Devar and an eight employee team consisting of researchers from the Laboratory for Computational Intelligence at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. In August of 2011, Zite was acquired by CNN whose general manager of digital, KC Estenson, determined this social magazine to be “a best-in-class product”. Like other apps in this category, Zite has had to resolve issues related to intellectual property. Zite is a free app which requires setting up an account profile specific to this magazine; however multiple users are able to create an account on the same device. The strength of this app is its ability to learn from the reader’s selection habits. Zite set up begins with specifying content categories to be followed. Personalization is aided by thumbs up and thumbs down buttons on each article and the ability to learn from Twitter and Google Reader accounts. Users report highly relevant content within a few days. Zite offers social integration with a variety of social media platforms, such as Twitter, Google Reader, [|Delicious], [|Read It Later], [|Facebook], and LinkedIn.

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Subjects

 * World News
 * Politics
 * Arts & Culture[[image:photo.PNG width="556" height="418" align="right" caption="Screenshot of Zite for iPad"]]
 * Business & Investing
 * Sports
 * Film & TV
 * Music News & Commentary
 * Gaming
 * Science News
 * Psychology & Mind
 * Food & Cooking
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Mac News
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Philosophy & Spirituality
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Programming
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Web Design & User Experience
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Graphic Design & Typography
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Architecture
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Photography
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Social Media
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Entrepreneurship
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Fashion
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Interior Design & Furniture
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Personal Finance
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Celebrity Gossip & Industry Rumors
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Health & Exercise
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Wine & Mixology
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Travel Blogs & Tips
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Automotive
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Luxury Lifestyle
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Pets

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Pulse
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Pulse is one of the few magazine apps available for both Apple and Android devices and was introduced in June 2010. Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta, co-founders of Alphonso Labs, developed Pulse for a class project at Stanford University. Although currently free, when originally released, Pulse was available for $3.99 and quickly became the top paid app. After initially receiving praise from the The Times, Pulse was briefly removed from the app store due to concerns over the app profiting from the content in the rss feeds of news organizations. The app offers social integration with a variety of social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Digg, Vimeo, YouTube, Picplz and Flickr. The Pulse.me feature allows users to save sources and share them through the cloud with other mobile devices. Pulse was an early entry in a new trend of apps designed to help organize and display the massive amounts of information available on the web. Pulse allows users to select categories of information, by choosing a “pack” or searching the catalog.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Suggested Packs:**
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Entertainment
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Politics
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Fashion
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Business
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Art & Design
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">News & Analysis
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Fun
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Sports
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Music
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Food
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Technology
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Home & Living
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Science
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Gaming

<span style="display: block; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 9.8px; text-align: right;">Image by Flickr user Lance Shields and used under the Creative Commons License.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Flipboard
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Flipboardwas launched for the iPad by developers Mike McCue and Evan Doll on July 21, 2010. NYTimes.com declared this social magazine “A Prettier Way to Browse the Social Web”. McCue, a former CEO and founder of Tellme, and Doll, a former senior iPhone engineer at Apple, were able to raise $10.5 million early on from supporters such as Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, and Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook, in addition to other investors. Flipboard has continued to secure financial backers and the company’s current value is around $200 million. The Flipboard service is currently available at no charge, but features full page, attractive magazine style ads and eventually plans to include “micropayment” charges for certain feed subscriptions. The strength of this personalized magazine app is the innovative integration of a variety of social media services, like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and RSS feeds, with current news and subject feeds. These social media feeds are displayed in well-designed magazine style layouts rather than the list style which is standard within each service. The developers are not planning to expand to other mobile devices platforms. Flipboard was voted Apple's iPad App of the Year and named one of TIME's top 50 innovations of 2010.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Content Categories:** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Social
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Featured
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">News
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Business
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Tech & Science
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Video
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Cool Curators
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Flipboard Picks
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Arts & Photos
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Lifestyle
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Living
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Entertainment
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Sports
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Local Travel

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Livestand
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">The launch of Yahoo’s social magazine app, Livestand, on November 2, 2011 marked the company’s decision to place greater emphasis on mobile projects. While Livestand enables login in with a Yahoo or Facebook account, those feeds are not featured in the app’s content. Instead, Livestand relies on the content provided by partners such as Consumer Reports, Scientific American, and Forbes, in addition to Yahoo products like Yahoo News, Yahoo Today and Yahoo Sports. The Facebook account information and bookmarking preferences are used to tailor the suggestions and populate the “Personal Mix” section of the app. Livestand is currently available at no cost and intends to profit by the use of interactive advertising. Yahoo plans to expand Livestand to other mobile devices in the future. The ability to switch between multiple users, who can each link to their accounts, is a definite advantage.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Content Categories:** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Featured
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Art & Culture
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Business & Finance
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Entertainment
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Games & Hobbies
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Lifestyle & Leisure
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">News & Politics
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Photography
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Science
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Sports
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Technology
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Travel

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Library Science Connection
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Information professionals can tailor a personalized magazine to display sources they rely on to keep up to date in their fields. Having all the sources available in one unified location will save time. Professionals will be able to spend more time reading desired content and less time searching the web. Libraries that checkout tablet devices to patrons can customize a personalized magazine with feeds designed to promote the library and its resources.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**References**
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Guynn, J. (2011, November 3). Yahoo debuts Livestand, other apps. Los Angeles Times, pp. 2B. Retrieved from LexisNexis Academic.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Indvik, L. (2011, August 30). Why CNN acquired Zite [INTERVIEW]. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2011/08/30/cnn-zite-acquisition-interview/

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Liedtke, M. (2011, November 6). Struggling Yahoo brings iPad magazine to market. The Washington Post, pp. T06. Retrieved from LexisNexis Academic.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Meece,M. (2011, September 22). All the news you want, when you want it. The New York Times, pp. 6B. Retrieved from LexisNexis Academic.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Miller, C.C. (2010, July 21). A prettier way to browse the social web. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/a-prettier-way-to-browse-the-social-web/?src=mv

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Parr, B. (2011, November 2). Hands on: Does Yahoo’s Livestand stand up to Flipboard? [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2011/11/02/yahoo-livestand/

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Spangler, T. (2011, September 5). CNN acquires iPad app developer Zite. Multichannel News. Retrieved from Expanded Academic ASAP.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Swisher, K. (2010, June 8). Meet the two grad students who freaked out the NYT–the pulse iPad app creators speak! [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://allthingsd.com/20100608/meet-the-two-grad-students-who-freaked-out-the-nyt-the-pulse-ipad-app-creators-speak/

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Taylor, C. (2011, March 2009). Introducing Zite, the iPad’s Smartest Magazine Yet [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2011/03/09/zite/

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Vallone, J. (2011, June 22). Magazine publishers flip for popular iPad reading App. Investors Business Daily. p. A04. Retrieved from Regional Business News.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Van Grove, J. (2010, June 8). The New York Times tells Apple to pull Pulse iPad app. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2010/06/08/pulse-ipad/

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Wasserman, T. (2011, April 14). Flipboard nabs $50 million in funding, bringing valuation to $200 million. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2011/04/14/flipboard-50-million-funding/

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Williams, M. (2010). Flipboard launches iPad app to adulation, rush of users. PCWorld. Retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/article/201549/flipboard_launches_ipad_app_to_adulation_rush_of_users.html