Wavii was a Seattle startup founded by Adrian Aoun in 2008, and was subsequently acquired by Google, Inc. in April 2013.[1] Wavii developed an iPhone app that allowed users to follow topics (e.g., a company, celebrity, politician, athlete, city, etc.) and receive short updates about them in their feed. This app was based on data produced by Wavii's proprietary technology, which used natural-language-processing and machine-learning approaches to convert content on the web (e.g., news articles and blogs) into structured summaries of the stories they contained.[2]
 | |
| Available in | English |
|---|---|
| Owner | Alphabet Inc. |
| Commercial | yes |
| Launched | Late 2008 |
| Current status | Active (Integrated in Google) |
Wavii's team was primarily former Last.fm, Microsoft, and Amazon engineers.[3]
Google acquisition
editOn April 30, 2013 it was announced that Google, Inc. had acquired Wavii for an amount that was officially undisclosed, but which industry insiders claimed was over $30 million USD. The acquisition was viewed as a way for Google to expand their ability to understand the web for search and to summarize content.[4]
Google discontinued the Wavii iPhone app and website, but the company reported that it is continuing to run Wavii's technology and produce feed content for applications within Google.[5]
Following the acquisition Wavii's team relocated from Seattle to the San Francisco Bay area.[6]
References
edit- ^ Ingrid Lunden (2013-04-26). "Wavii Confirms Google Buy, Shuts Down Its Service To Make Natural Language Products For The Search Giant". TechCrunch.
- ^ Santos, Alexis (2013-04-24). "Google reportedly acquires natural language processing startup Wavii". Engadget.com. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
- ^ "Join". LinkedIn. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
- ^ Efrati, Amir (2013-04-23). "Google Acquires Wavii to Beef Up Web-Search 'Knowledge Graph' - Digits - WSJ". Blogs.wsj.com. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
- ^ "Wavii". Wavii. Archived from the original on 2013-08-12. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
- ^ "Wavii officially acquired by Google, app shuts down". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
Further reading
edit- Wingfield, Nick (April 13, 2012). "Wavii: A Facebook for Topics". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 February 2014.
- Wavii Vows to Understand Entire Internet | Wired.com
- It's Official: Google Has Acquired News Stream Startup Wavii - Business Insider
- With An Improved Design, Navigation & Social Features, Wavii’s Rebuilt iPhone App Is Like A Facebook News Feed For Actual News | TechCrunch
- Wavii (for iPhone) (beta) Review & Rating | PCMag.com
External links
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