Yahoo Launches News Digest, Its First App Based On Summly

Today at its CES keynote, Yahoo announced a new product, News Digest, to help people stay “quickly informed” on the day’s big topics by sending out twice daily updates, or digests.

The content is a curated “blend” of information, using several sources to create news stories. Yahoo calls the individual stories “atoms.” The goal of News Digest is to bring users “comprehensive, effortless, and complete” information on their world.

The product represents Yahoo’s first product built on top of Summly, a company that it purchased that had a focus on gisting information to small summaries.

Yahoo’s own stated goal is to “give users a daily source of news that they are missing today.”

The new service fits well inside Yahoo’s new rubric of building mobile applications that help users with their daily tasks. News Digest is designed to be used at least twice daily, so it could have high resonance among its user base.

Yahoo’s keynote address also included various notes on its content strategy, which is expanding. It seems logical that its own reporting will be folded into News Digest. We’ll have hands on notes in short order.

The app is live in the App Store now.