On The Verge Of 5 Million Users, Pulse Scores The First ESPN Deal. In many ways, tablet-focused readers like Pulse, Flipboard, and now Editions, are the next phase of RSS readers.
But they’re RSS readers that the masses will actually use because they’re actually user-friendly and oriented around experience and visuals. But because they’re so tailored for user experience, they often need partnerships beyond a simple RSS feed to bring in the necessary information to populate the apps. Today, Pulse has landed a massive fish in that regard: ESPN. The sports category has always been a bit under-represented in the tablet reading space because ESPN content has been largely absent. ESPN is by far the biggest name in sports news, and Pulse notes their deal is the first time the sports network has agreed to syndicate their content to a mobile app that is not one of their own.
Pulse, le lecteur de news sur iPad, lève 9 millions de dollars. Pulse, le célèbre lecteur de news via les flux RSS et les réseaux sociaux, vient de lever 9 millions de dollars auprès de New Enterprise Associates, Greycroft Partners, et Lerer Ventures.
Créé par deux étudiants diplômés de Stanford et initialement sur iPad, Pulse est maintenant disponible sur iPhone et Android, ou encore via le web service récemment lancé. Au début, les échanges fut difficiles avec l’industrie des médias, notamment lorsque le New York Times s’est opposé à la dernière version de l’application qui s’est vu supprimée temporairement de l’App Store. Aujourd’hui, des accords concernant le contenu ont été réalisés avec des sociétés comme The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, The Huffington Post, et The New Yorker. Avec plus de 4 millions d’utilisateurs, c’est l’une des références des applications de lecture de news, de part son design et son ergonomie, au côté de Flipboard. The New York Times Doesn't Want You Accessing Its RSS Feed Via An RSS Feed Reader.
Meet the Two Grad Students Who Freaked Out the NYT–The Pulse iPad App Creators Speak! – AllThingsD. The first thing to strike you about the pair of Stanford University graduate students (pictured here) who made the banned and then unbanned news-reading iPad app, Pulse News Reader, is how they look like an advertisement for all that is good about entrepreneurship.
Sweet-natured, slightly naive, energetic and very product focused, they are the last techies you’d choose to be the ones who got the New York Times (NYT) in enough of a tizzy to force Apple to pull the aggregator from its App Store. BoomTown met Akshay Kothari, 23, and 22-year-old Ankit Gupta this afternoon at a hotel near the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, where Pulse was called out yesterday by name by Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs for excellence only hours before the company had to stop offering it to users. At first, the shy pair said they did not want to call attention to themselves or rail on Apple or the Times.
Pulse iPad App Gets Steve Jobs's Praise in Morning…Then Booted From App Store Hours Later After NYT Complains – AllThingsD. Yesterday morning, the pair of Stanford University graduate students who made the hot news-reading iPad app, Pulse News Reader, were ecstatic to be mentioned first–for being among the most promising developers for the new tablet device–by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in his keynote speech at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.
But by the afternoon, that flush of entrepreneurial success had turned sour, after Apple (AAPL) informed the two that Pulse was being pulled from the App Store after it received a written notice from the New York Times Company (NYT) declaring that “The New York Times Company believes your application named ‘Pulse News Reader’ infringes The New York Times Company’s rights.” In an unusual coincidence, the Times Web site was on prominent display on a huge screenshot of the iPad during Jobs’s speech. Ironically, the Times wrote a big wet kiss about Pulse last week in a blog post titled “The iPad Pulse Reader Scales the Charts,” by tech writer Brad Stone. Booted Pulse iPad App Returns to the App Store–But How? – AllThingsD. Pulse, the iPad news reader lauded by Apple CEO Steve Jobs during his WWDC keynote Monday only to be pulled from App Store hours later after a complaint from the New York Times Company, has been reinstated.
Earlier this afternoon, Pulse returned to the App Store–though it’s not quite clear why. The Stanford University graduate students who designed the app say they submitted a new version to Apple (AAPL) that doesn’t preload the Times’ RSS feed, but as far as they know, it is still awaiting review. In other words, the app that’s currently available on iTunes appears to be the original version that inspired the takedown request. I own the app and a quick check of my iTunes account shows no updates yet available for Pulse. And on my iPad, it’s still pulling in an RSS feed from the Times. I have asked Apple and the Times for comment and will update here if I hear back.