PressReader was founded in 1999 as NewspaperDirect, a company started as a service for printing physical copies of newspapers, aimed at travellers who wished to read their home newspaper while staying in a hotel abroad.
After launching its first digital product in 2003, the company rebranded as PressReader in 2013.
PressReader now operates a platform that converts newspapers and magazines into digital formats, while offering a $29.99 monthly subscription that provides unlimited access to more than 7,000 of those titles.
PressReader announced today that they have acquired news aggregation app News360. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
While similar to other news aggregation apps like Flipboard, News360 was likely an acquisition target because of it’s NativeAI technology for analytics and personalization.
In today’s press release, PressReader CEO Alex Kroogman suggested that News360’s technology will be used to improve PressReader’s consumer experience and publisher tools.
“In a world where news fatigue is a real and growing problem, and media literacy a global concern, it’s more important than ever for people to have access to the trusted content they need in an engaging environment. By understanding each person’s interests, and building advanced data science systems around content analytics, we will be able to give our millions of readers the trusted media they want, how they want it, when they want it, and where they want it, while building more audience intelligence into the data that drives our publisher and brand partnerships”.
The News360 team will be joining PressReader and working out of their Vancouver headquarters.
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