The British teenager who sold his news summary app to Yahoo for millions is facing a major life choice as he weighs education and business opportunities.
Nick D’Aloisio told the BBC he was currently deciding between working full-time for the California-based company or going to university.
The 18-year-old has just released an iPad edition of Yahoo’s News Digest, for which he acts as project manager.
He is also developing an Apple Watch version, among other projects.
“For the lightweight news consumption that we have, [News] Digest is absolutely suited for this device,” he said.
“Because of the summarisation element to this app, it just inherently makes sense when you have a constrained screen.
“We’ve been thinking about designing the concept of taking Digest to wearables for a while now, and we’re going to jump at the opportunity.”
The app’s icon briefly features during the Watch promotional video on Apple’s site.
Mr D’Aloisio said his team had already begun work on the software before the launch event, but had been kept “in the dark” about how the device functioned.
He added that he also intended to bring the app to Android Wear smartwatches.
News Digest has already been downloaded to about 1.3 million iPhones and 623,000 Android handsets, according to analytics provider Xyo.
Yahoo would not confirm those numbers, but said that it believed:
65% of those who download the app became monthly active users
40% of those who download the app became daily active users
University dilemma
Mr D’Aloisio was only 16 years old when he secured a $250,000 (£154,000) investment in his software from Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing.
Yahoo News Digest has been downloaded about two million times
He subsequently launched the app Summly as a standalone news-summarisation product, but it was only a few months before Yahoo acquired the technology and his services, in a deal reported to be worth £20m.
Since then he has headed up a team of about a dozen software engineers and designers to create and run News Digest, at the same time as sitting his A-level exams.
Yahoo’s app delivers two daily briefings of eight to nine stories, which are assembled by algorithms using text, images and videos sourced from online providers including:
- Reuters
- Sky News
- Agence France Presse
- Techcrunch
Credit: BBC