Bits: News Aggregator Zite Wants to Play Nice With Publishers

Zite, a news aggregator for the iPad whose app has irked major news publishers, said Monday that Mark Johnson, a longtime adviser to the company, would become its new chief executive.

But the announcement those news publishers were likely to focus on was Zite’s release of a new version of its app, which it calls a “personalized magazine.” It said it was intended to quell the criticism from publishers.

A month ago, Zite, which competes with other news aggregators like the well-financed Flipboard, Pulse and News.me, received a cease and desist letter signed by a long list of major publishers, including The Washington Post Company, Gannett, Dow Jones and The Associated Press. The publishers accused company, which is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, of using their intellectual property without permission.

Zite quickly defended itself. In a blog post, Ali Davar, the previous chief executive, said the company obtained content by crawling sites, much like search engines do, and that it would respect any site that asked not to be crawled. Mr. Davar, who is now Zite’s president, also said that while Zite stripped articles of ads to make formatting for reading easier, it would honor any publisher’s request to show the ads in “Web-view mode,” where they would appear just a they do on the publisher’s Web site.

“Zite is eager to work with publishers in a way that benefits everyone – most importantly end users,” Mr. Davar said.

In the new version of the Zite app, content that appears in Web-view mode will load faster and will be easier to share with others, Mr. Johnson said. Users will also be able to read content in Web mode without leaving the app.

“In complying with the [cease & desist], more content needs to be served in Web mode,” the company said on its blog. “So it’s important to us to improve the user experience for articles rendered in that view.”

Previously Mr. Johnson worked at Microsoft, as senior program manager at Bing. He joined Microsoft via its acquisition of Powerset. He previously worked at other hot start-ups, including SideStep, which was acquired by Kayak.com, and Kosmix, which Wal-Mart bought recently.

Mr. Johnson has worked as an adviser to Zite for nearly two years. The company, originally called Worio, has developed a technology that analyzes content a bit like Pandora analyses music, he said. As a result, it can recommend articles based on what a person has read, shared or liked, he said.

“Over the next six to nine months we want to work with innovative publishers to figure out monetization strategies that will make money for everyone,” Mr. Johnson said.

Zite, which plans to remain in Vancouver, will also open offices in the San Francisco area to tap local talent, Mr. Johnson said.

The market for aggregators that turn Web articles and links shared on Facebook and Twitter into digital versions of a customized magazine on the iPad has grown increasingly crowded. Flipboard, the best known of the services, recently said it had raised $50 million in financing. News.me, a site backed by publishers, including The New York Times Company, was released last week.