Taptu

Taptu Ltd, Taptu Inc
Private
Industry Social Media
Founded 2007
Headquarters Cambridge, UK
Key people
 Mitch Lazar (CEO)
Products Mobile Social News Aggregator, Mobile Search
Number of employees
 40–45 (2009)
Website www.taptu.com

Taptu is a social media and technology company that builds platforms, tools and applications that enable highly personalised creation, curation, recommendation, search, discovery, management, consumption and sharing of content across all personal screen-based devices, and most significantly on touch screen mobile devices, including phones running the operating systems iOS (iPhone) and Android. Taptu is a privately held company that was founded in Cambridge in 2007 and is backed by funding from Venture Capitalists including DFJ Esprit and Sofinnova. The company is based in Cambridge and Denver, Colorado.

In September 2012, Taptu was acquired by UK based Mediafed Ltd. The Taptu service shut down March 31st, 2015. [1]

Products

Original product

Taptu's first product was a mobile search engine, provided as a website using html optimised for phones, and dedicated apps for iPhone and Android. It was closed in early 2011, with an announcement from Mitch Lazar stating the intention to focus on the news aggregation product.

My Taptu

Its flagship product was My Taptu, a social news aggregator that drew heavily on the company’s mobile search heritage but attempts to move them beyond search.[2] According to Taptu, the app, which was available on the iPhone and Android devices, is "aimed at solving information overload," or what Taptu calls "app hopping."[3] It presented all the information that a person "is into" in a "one- stop app" through "streams," or what CNET describes as “content playlists.”[4] My Taptu tried to separate itself in the increasingly crowded social news space by offering various ways of personalising and building My Taptu.

The app let users add content through:

1) Social Streams: Users can add their Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn feeds to My Taptu. They could also add the feeds of select newsmakers or publishers that My Taptu curated. Any time someone in a user's social circle shared a link with him, My Taptu displayed a preview of the article and its source in the app itself.

2) Single Streams: One stream of content came from one source, and ran all of the news or content coming only from that source. For example, a person could have added The New York Times breaking news as a stream.

3) Mixed Streams: Combined streams were curated by topic. Content came from a variety of sources. For example, the technology news stream could have contained news flowing from TechCrunch, The New York Times Bits Blog, Read Write Web, Engadget, Gizmodo, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. Taptu believed mixed streams put a story into a wider context, and help people discover content they might have not originally sought out.

4) Web Watcher Streams: Taptu had technology that it calls the “web watcher”, which allowed it to watch websites that had no RSS feed and no mobile presence and turn their content into streams. The company used it to fill in their fashion streams.

My Taptu was released in the App Store and the Android Market on November 9, 2010. It received several positive reviews.[5][6][7] and Apple promoted the App on its UK App Store front page by selecting it as a feature App of the Week shortly after My Taptu launched.

To support the launch of My Taptu, the company commissioned a series of online videos. The videos are designed to illustrate that My Taptu had a wide enough depth and breadth of content to appeal to any niche interest or passion a person has. One of its successful videos depicts the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, riding a “Boris Bike” Danny MacAskill-style at a local London skate park.[8]

Wapedia

Wapedia, Taptu’s other product, is a mobile Wikipedia service.

Management

Mitch Lazar, former MD of Yahoo Mobile Europe, is CEO of Taptu. He stepped into the role on 20 October 2010, after spending 3 months as President and COO. Steve Ives, founder and former CEO, moved over to president where he remained until early 2011[9][10]

Funding

Taptu is backed by Sofinnova and DFJ Esprit, which bought out 3i’s investments in 2009.

Recognition and Awards

References

  1. ↑ Crider, Michael (Mar 30, 2015). "Taptu News Reader Service Shutting Down, Developers Recommend Feedly As A Replacement".
  2. ↑ Butcher, Mike (November 9, 2010). "My Taptu arrives to take on Flipboard and Pulse in the touch aggregator stakes". TechCrunch.
  3. ↑ Kiss, Jemima (9 November 2010). "My Taptu app takes the visual news aggregator to mobile". The Guardian (London).
  4. ↑ http://www.cnet.com/8301-19736_1-20022141-251.html
  5. ↑ http://www.macworld.com/article/155636/2010/11/mytaptu.html
  6. ↑ http://www.laptopmag.com/review/software/my-taptu.aspx#axzz16i3svHVa
  7. ↑ http://recombu.com/apps/android/my-taptu-app-review_M12697.html
  8. ↑ http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23900593-is-it-wheelie-him-mayor-in-boris-bike-video-stunts-on-web.do
  9. ↑ http://blog.taptu.com/2010/10/20/announcing-mitch-lazar-as-taptus-new-ceo/
  10. ↑ http://www.taptu.com/about/press/2010-09-20
  11. ↑ "Taptu Takes Mobile Search Award". Mobile Marketing Magazine.
  12. ↑ "ME Awards 2008: The winners in full". Mobile Entertainment.
  13. ↑ "Taptu Wins "Best Search Provider 2008" at Mobile Entertainment Awards". Taptu Blog.
  14. ↑ "Day One, MEX 2008 & the winners of the MEX Awards". Mobile User Experience.
  15. ↑ "Taptu honoured as recipient of Red Herring Top 100 Europe list". Taptu Blog.
  16. ↑ "MobileMonday Peer Awards Barcelona 2008". Mobile Monday Barcelona.
  17. ↑ "Meffys 2010". Meffys 2010.
  18. ↑ "TechCrunch Europas 2010". TechCrunch Europas 2010.

External links