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.<\/p>\n
Nick D’Aloisio told the BBC he was currently deciding between working full-time for the California-based company or going to university.<\/p>\n
The 18-year-old has just released an iPad edition of Yahoo’s News Digest, for which he acts as project manager.<\/p>\n
He is also developing an Apple Watch version, among other projects.<\/p>\n
“For the lightweight news consumption that we have, [News] Digest is absolutely suited for this device,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Because of the summarisation element to this app, it just inherently makes sense when you have a constrained screen.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
The app’s icon briefly features during the Watch promotional video on Apple’s site.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
He added that he also intended to bring the app to Android Wear smartwatches.<\/p>\n
News Digest has already been downloaded to about 1.3 million iPhones and 623,000 Android handsets, according to analytics provider Xyo.<\/p>\n
Yahoo would not confirm those numbers, but said that it believed:<\/p>\n
65% of those who download the app became monthly active users<\/p>\n
40% of those who download the app became daily active users<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
University dilemma<\/b><\/p>\n
Mr D’Aloisio was only 16 years old when he secured a $250,000 (\u00a3154,000) investment in his software from Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing.<\/p>\n
Yahoo News Digest has been downloaded about two million times<\/p>\n
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 \u00a320m.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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:<\/p>\n
Credit: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":46845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[18],"yoast_head":"\n