I’ve been using Zite a lot in the short amount of time that I’ve has this ‘iPad magazine’ app. Of the current crop of news aggregator/magazine/social networking media presentation apps out there, I am starting to see that this works quite well…for me…
Just my luck…in the last couple of weeks I have seen some correlative proof that this is indeed a popular app, in that a number of publishers are trying to hammer this app (and by inference, any other similar apps out here…Flipboard…?).
I see this as about the same sort of tactics which the MPAA is currently using, as well as the recording industry… I am not very interested in the merits of whether this is in actuality copyright infringement… I see a couple other things of importance… First, this app (Zite) does what these media outlets haven’t been able to do, and secondly, I am pretty sure that they are not learning anything from this (just as the previous dinosaurs…).
Note to Media: Don’t Fight Zite, Learn From It
http://gigaom.com/2011/03/31/note-to-media-dont-fight-zite-learn-from-it/
In an entirely too-predictable development, a group of media outlets has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the creators of Zite, a magazine-style aggregator for the iPad. The publishers allege that by pulling in their content and displaying it in a more readable way — that is, without a lot of the extraneous website elements, including ads — Zite is guilty of copyright infringement. While this may be true in a legal sense, it ignores the bigger picture, which is that readers are looking for better ways of consuming content, and they aren’t getting it from traditional publishers. Why not learn from Zite and others like it instead of threatening to sue them?
Media giants target free Zite news application
http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201113/7004/Media-giants-target-free-Zite-news-application
Zite, a handy but controversial news-aggregation app built for use on the Apple iPad has this week provoked the legal fury of a number of media outlets due to how it operates.
Once installed, the Zite platform searches for and displays news stories depending on the user’s particular interests—however, the sourced content is shown on a Zite pop-up window that automatically applies re-formatting, dropping any accompanying ads in the process.
And this is what has apparently ruffled the feathers of major media outlets such as The Associated Press, Dow Jones, Getty Images, Time Inc., and The Washington Post.
How good is Flipboard competitor Zite?
http://scobleizer.com/2011/03/09/how-good-is-flipboard-competitor-zite
So, how good is it?
Well, for +me+ it actually is better than Flipboard in one sizeable way: it built me a table of contents of different sections automatically after I added my Twitter and Google Reader accounts into it. The sections read: Gadgets, Mac, Programming, Social Media, Technology, Palm, Python, which match the major interests of many of the 32,000 people I’m following on Twitter and the hundreds of feeds I’m following on Google Reader.
Publishing Heavyweights Target iPad Media App ‘Zite’
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/media-heavies-zite-cease
The companies pursuing Zite — Advance Publications, Inc., The Associated Press, Dow Jones & Company, Inc., Gannett Co., Inc., Getty Images, The McClatchy Company, the National Geographic Society, The E.W. Scripps Company, Time Inc., The Slate Group, and The Washington Post — allege that Zite’s rendering and repurposing “harm(s) our companies and the broader media and news industry on which your application relies for its content.”
“By systematically reformatting, republishing, and redistributing our original content on a mass commercial scale without our permission in your iPad application, Zite directly and adversely impacts our businesses,” the letter says. “Your application takes the intellectual property of our companies, as well as the hard and sometimes dangerous work of tens of thousands of people. It deprives our websites of traffic and advertising revenue. We do not know your intentions, but your actions harm our companies and the broader media and news industry on which your application relies for its content.”
Zite seems to be taking it all in stride, saying in a blog post that “We don’t look at this as an adversarial situation.”
