Pinterest Acquires News-Bookmarking App Instapaper
August 23 2016 - 2:30PM
Dow Jones News
Pinterest Inc. said Tuesday that it had acquired
article-bookmarking app Instapaper. Terms of the deal weren't
disclosed.
Instapaper, founded in 2008, is one of many apps that let people
save webpages to be read later. The startup, which has three
employees including Chief Executive Brian Donohue, was acquired by
New York-based startup incubator Betaworks in 2013.
Pinterest said Instapaper would continue operating as a separate
app, a departure from the fate of its other acquisitions, which are
usually shut down after the purchase is completed.
"How to read online is changing as social platforms like
Pinterest play a larger role in the discovery, sharing and reading
experiences," said John Borthwick, founder and CEO of
Betaworks.
One of the primary ways that more than 100 million people use
Pinterest is to save images and articles from across the web to a
self-curated "board" on Pinterest. The content can range from
lifestyle news to how-to guides.
Pinterest said it would leverage Instapaper's expertise in
recommending articles based on user behavior. Pinterest, which aims
to become a kind of search engine where users can discover new
ideas, has been working to improve its own recommendation service
as it provides suggested pins to users based on the content they
have saved and shared.
"Instapaper will work with us to continue building indexing and
recommendations technologies, and we look forward to building great
products together," said Pinterest's lead product manager, Steve
Davis, in a written statement Tuesday.
Tech companies have worked to integrate media content into their
platforms as they look for ways to keep users drawn to their
services. Facebook Inc. serves free news stories through Instant
Articles, Snapchat Inc.'s app houses original content from media
companies and Apple Inc. aggregates articles on its devices through
Apple News.
A spokeswoman for Pinterest said Instapaper has millions of
users, without specifying a number, and said the majority of them
are male. In contrast, Pinterest's audience has skewed female.
Write to Yoree Koh at yoree.koh@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 23, 2016 14:15 ET (18:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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