With Summify joining Twitter and shutting down, News.me steps up

Yesterday we reported that Twitter had acquired social feed summary tool, Summify. The move appears to be an attempt to bolster the new “Stories” feature that sits under the Discover tab. But during the announcement, Summify shared that it would be shutting down new registrations and ending its email summary service in a “few weeks”.

This has happened before during an acquisition, take Facebook’s acquisition of Gowalla, for example. While it was exciting times for both companies involved, Gowalla’s users were left wondering what was next for them and their data. A company called TouristEye stepped up and offered a new home to all of those Gowalla users.

Today, News.me is doing the same for Summify users who still want to get a summary of all of the previous day’s hot news. We first wrote about them in April, when they launched a gorgeous iPad app that pulled in all of the top stories from the people you follow on Twitter. In a blog post, News.me promises new features and a safe haven for those Summify users left out in the cold.

Here’s what News.me had to say:

Given the level of inbound interest in the Daily Digest, we thought we’d take a moment to share a bit about where we’re heading, and ask for some advice!

News.me is best known for the iPad app that we released last year (we’ve been staying busy since then, stay tuned for more details on that soon). We also have an email product (with tens of thousands of users) that is similar in functionality to what Summify offered its users. It started as a side project, a companion to our iOS applications, but has grown into a surprisingly massive and engaging product.

With all of the new interest in its Daily Digest feature, which is similar to what Summify provided, the company is throwing new focus on making it even better with the following features:

– Adding support for Facebook!
– Time of Day settings: you decide when the Daily Digest arrives
– Support for time zones: we hear you, Australia
– Story count settings: you decide how many stories you want in your Digest

So there you have it Summify users. Even though your service will be gone in a few weeks, there’s another one ready for your news-hungry eyes and brains. It will be interesting to see what the Summify team starts cranking on once it moves to Twitter’s San Francisco office from Vancouver. While I’m not personally a fan of the “Stories” feature, it does make sense for new users and those who don’t want to spend the time wading through trending topics and tweets.

➤ News.me