Wibbitz, a developer of text-to-video technologies based in Israel, has launched a new mobile app for Apple iOS devices that allows users to consume stories from their favorite news, sports, business and entertainment sites in the form of summarized video clips designed and optimized for their mobile devices.
The unique part is that the stories are not produced by personnel at any media company. The application assembles the content on the fly automatically on the device.
With the new Wibbitz app, articles originally drafted in text-form become interactive video clips that merge images, video clips, info-graphics and text-to-speech into a packaged form for mobile video consumption.
The Wibbitz app leverages technology the company developed for media outlets, allowing them to convert their existing text-based content into video content at scale — automatically and without human intervention.
The algorithms that drive Wibbitz’s technology analyze the text of an article, extract the highlights and translate them into video summaries. To accomplish this, it first applies a variety of smart natural language processing algorithms and machine learning capabilities to fully capture the essence of a story. It then automates the process of creating short videos at high speed and volume by intelligently weaving together related images, videos-clips and animated infographics. Designed and configured to be fast for smartphone consumption, the resulting videos are typically between 60 to 120 seconds, and include natural voice narration.
“Textual web content simply isn’t designed for consumption on mobile devices," said Zohar Dayan, CEO and co-founder of Wibbitz. "There’s just too much tapping and zooming in and out to comfortably enjoy reading the news.”
Founded in 2011, Wibbitz has raised $2.3 million from investors, including Li Ka-Shing’s Horizons Ventures (which invested in Facebook, Spotify and Waze), Lool Ventures, Initial Capital and Kima Ventures. Prior to launching the new app, Wibbitz offered content-to-video solutions for publishers, generating over 50,000 sites with more than 17 million unique video views per month.
Currently more than 50,000 sites (including Reuters, AP, TechCrunch, Businessweek, BBC and Forbes) are partnered with Wibbitz for content, and generate around 20 million video views each month. One line of code makes a site Wibbitz friendly.
The free Wibbitz app is available from the Apple store.
