Skip to main content

Zite’s dead, users told to get Flipboard

Zite, the digital magazine service that was acquired by Flipboard in March 2014, will finally be shut down on December 7, reports VentureBeat. Avid users of the popular app will be able to migrate their content to Flipboard, where the underlying technology for Zite has been slowly implemented since its acquisition.

Those who haven’t checked back into their Zite apps will be greeted with a notice of the pending closure upon opening the app, and an e-mail regarding this has also been sent to users. In order to get your data from Zite to Flipboard you have to authenticate yourself either via your Flipboard credentials or via Facebook, Twitter, or Google+. Then it’s a simple “Migrate to Flipboard” tap away.

Recommended Videos

The closure doesn’t come as too much of a surprise. Both companies were open about closing Zite’s services upon its acquisition in 2014. Mike Klass, co-founder and CTO, stated at the time that, “Our goal is to get the things that are great about Zite into Flipboard before shutting it down.“ In August the first sign of this came as Flipboard started incorporating the features found in Zite.

While some Zite fans have been livid about the acquisition and don’t think that the modified Flipboard service feels as stellar as Zite, others say they’re okay with the transition. Most complaints concern the topic filtering algorithm used in Zite, which some users state still provides better results than its Flipboard counterpart. Based on users preferences and reading habits, the algorithm was designed to provide ample articles of interest for the user.

It’s been more than a year and a half since Zite was acquired, and the slow progress in moving the service’s features to Flipboard is finally coming to a close. Flipboard has purposefully integrated the major components of Zite’s technology before moving on.

While we expect avid Zite users to feel left out by this closing of services, it would be premature to say that Flipboard won’t be able to provide the same level of personalized content. Since the underlying technology will have to adapt to the new range of content that’s also available on Flipboard, though, users may find that it takes time before the service has fully caught up to their previous user experience.

Dan Isacsson
Being a gamer since the age of three, Dan took an interest in mobile gaming back in 2009. Since then he's been digging ever…
X rival Threads could be about to get millions of more users
Instagram Threads app.

Threads -- Meta’s rival to X, formerly Twitter -- has just launched in the European Union (EU), a market with nearly half a billion people.

The app launched in the U.S. to much fanfare in July, with Meta hoping to attract X users disillusioned with the turbulence on the platform since Elon Musk acquired it for $44 billion 14 months ago.

Read more
We’re getting another Amazon Prime shopping event in October this year
Digital Trends Best Prime Day Deals

If you didn't get all your shopping done during Prime Day, you're getting a second chance. Amazon just announced Prime Big Deal Days, a second exclusive Prime member shopping event for 2023.

Doug Herrington, the CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, announced the event via his LinkedIn page on Tuesday morning. Details are still scarce, but we know the event will take place in October of 2023 and be available to Prime members in 19 countries, including the U.S. and the U.K.

Read more
Waymo’s self-driving cars can’t get enough of one dead-end street
waymo

Waymo has been testing its self-driving cars in San Francisco for the last decade. But an apparent change to the vehicles’ routing has caused many of them to make a beeline for a dead-end street in a quiet part of the city, causing residents there to wonder what on earth is going on.

At CBS news crew recently visited the site -- 15th Avenue north of Lake Street in Richmond -- to see if it could work out why so many of Waymo’s autonomous cars are showing up, turning around, and then driving right out again.

Read more