Seventeen-year-old Nick d'Aloisio devised a
content-shortening programing while studying for his exams
LONDON
(AP) — One of Britain’s youngest Internet entrepreneurs has hit the
jackpot after selling his top-selling mobile application Summly to
search giant Yahoo.
Seventeen-year-old Nick d’Aloisio, who dreamed
up the idea for the content-shortening program when he was studying for
his exams, said he was surprised by the deal. As with its other recent
acquisitions, Yahoo didn’t disclose how much it is paying for Summly,
although British newspapers suggested the deal’s value at several
million dollars.
“I would have never imagined being in this
position so suddenly,” he wrote on his website, before thanking his
family, his school — and his venture capitalist backer Li Ka-Shing — for
supporting him.
Summly works by condensing content so readers can
scroll through more information more quickly — useful for the small
screens of smartphones.
The
deal announced Monday is Yahoo’s fifth small acquisition in the past
five months. All of them have been part of CEO Marissa Mayer’s effort to
attract more engineers with expertise in building services for
smartphones and tablet computers, an increasingly important area of
technology that she believes the Internet company had been neglecting.
Although
the Yahoo acquisition won’t close until later this spring, D’Aloisio
said the Summly will no longer be available. Summly’s technology will
return in other Yahoo products, he said.
D’Aloisio will work for
Yahoo in its London office — in part so that he can complete his high
school exams. Two other Summly workers will join Yahoo at its Sunnyvale,
California, headquarters.
D’Aloisio is younger than Yahoo, which was incorporated in March 1995.
story from Shalom
By Marissa Mayer
(Credit: Paul Sakuma/AP/dapd)
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