The Jerusalem Post

Israel’s Wibbitz changes the entertainm­ent world

- By Ariel Shapira

The world’s largest gossip and entertainm­ent site TMZ, recently signed a collaborat­ion agreement with Israeli start-up Wibbitz, which has developed a technology that automatica­lly converts text articles from websites to videos that can be shared on Facebook and Instagram.

“Our technology is based on artificial intelligen­ce, which connects to TMZ databases and scans the articles to summarize the most interestin­g content,” Wibbitz CEO and co-founder Zohar Dayan said. “The attractive parts of the summary are automatica­lly changed by your computer into a video segment that is optimized for sharing on social media. This is how TMZ creates in real time dozens of videos each day without the need for human video editors.”

The deal was signed with the aim of converting articles to video clips that are made especially for mobile viewing and will increase the traffic of the surfers to the site from social networks. It will also increase advertisin­g revenues. According to a study by SimileWeb, which measures traffic, TMZ ranks first in the entertainm­ent world, with more than 70 million unique hits each month. Social networks have a great influence on the visitors’ traffic to the site, and each month they send millions of visitors to it.

Wibbitz predicts a 400% increase in revenues by the end of 2017. It provides services to leading sites in the US and Europe, including Reuters, Forbes, Time Inc., CBSi, Bloomberg and more than 500 content sites. The company was founded in 2011 and has offices in Tel Aviv, New York and Paris. It currently employs 70 people and has plans to double itself to 120 employees.

YouAppi

YouAppi, which uses AI-based and predictive-analysis technology to promote premium applicatio­ns worldwide and create customized user recommenda­tions, was founded in 2011 by Moshe Vaknin and Ofer Grant.

Since then, the company has experience­d meteoric growth. Over the past three years, it has recorded a growth rate of 16,230%, following the launch of an advanced technology-based product and by expanding into a target countries characteri­zed by rapid growth, such as Japan and Indonesia.

Another 20 Israeli companies were ranked, but only two of them reached the top 10.

“It is a great honor to receive recognitio­n for recent growth,” YouAppi co-founder and CEO Moshe Vaknin said. “Over the past two years we have experience­d rapid growth thanks to two key elements: the advanced technologi­cal capabiliti­es we’ve developed, which have enabled us to provide a quality product that optimizes the promotion of applicatio­ns on mobile, along with global expansion and entry into growing markets.

“Our ability to offer our customers a solution for AI deep technology and predictive analysis, which produces greater effectiven­ess than what has been available before in mobile computing, combined with the ability to provide informatio­n based on 66 parameters, has brought about accelerate­d growth rates. In the past two years, we have also entered new markets and expanded our number of representa­tive offices worldwide to 12, with offices in rapidly growing markets such as Japan and Indonesia.”

YouAppi represents 470 leading brands worldwide, manages 17,000 campaigns simultaneo­usly, collects data insights from 1.5 billion users and manages 100 billion monthly exposures. Among the investors of YouAppi ($18 million so far) are AltAir Capital, Glilot Capital Partners and 2B Angels.

If you run a young start-up, have developed an interestin­g app or have a question, please feel free to contact info@social-wisdom.com.

Translated by Hannah Hochner.

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