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The endeavor to create a successful news aggregator application, designed to consolidate news articles, and social media updates into a single platform, is proving to be a significant challenge in the current digital environment. Smashing, an AI-powered news app that enabled users to curate news and online content, has announced its impending shutdown, reportedly due to difficulties in achieving rapid expansion.
“Our rate of expansion was simply insufficient for continued operation. We were unable to evolve it into a sustainable and scalable product,” the company stated in an email to its user base, revealing the discontinuation of services.
Smashing: Background and Functionality
Smashing was introduced last June by Otis Chandler, the founder of GoodReads, with the intention of utilizing artificial intelligence and user community feedback to refine news articles, blog entries, podcasts, and social media posts from across the internet. The application allowed individuals to monitor topics of interest, contribute content, and evaluate suggested content relevance through a voting mechanism. It also featured AI-driven summaries and an interactive bot capable of addressing inquiries.
According to the email announcement, the company comprised a team of seven individuals dedicated to the product. Smashing had successfully secured $3.4 million in funding from a group of investors, including True Ventures, Blockchange, Offline Ventures, Advancit Capital, Power of N Ventures, and various angel investors.
Alternative Platforms for News Aggregation
Despite Smashing’s closure, numerous startups are actively engaged in addressing the challenges of news aggregation. Several AI-powered news readers, such as Bulletin and Particle, are currently available, along with feed aggregator applications like Feeeed, Tapestry, and Reeder, among others, providing alternative solutions for content consumption.
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Contextualizing Smashing’s Closure
The cessation of Smashing’s operations follows a similar trajectory observed with Artifact, another AI-based news application launched by Instagram’s co-founders, which was discontinued the previous year and subsequently had its technology acquired by Yahoo.