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'Zite Personalized Magazine’ Is Instantly Likable & Useful

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'Zite Personalized Magazine’ Is Instantly Likable & Useful [Editor's Note: This review was written on March 11, 2011, pre-dating the launch of our News section on August 29, 2011. It is being re-published so it can be properly archived in the News section.] Zite Personalized Magazine by Zite Inc. is a wonderful app delivering specific content based on your preferences, reading habits and by analyzing your Twitter and/or Google Reader accounts. Zite has instantly become one of the apps we use every day. It is that good. There are three methods Zite uses to determine what content is most relevant and potentially interesting to you. First, users begin by picking Sections to customize the content used to create your personalized magazine. Sections include macro categories such as World News, Sports, Film & TV, Mac and so much more. If you don’t see a topic of interest, no problem. Simply enter the topic in the free form text box under “Enter your own:” and more choices will be revealed. Second, after selecting sections you can link your Twitter and/or Google Reader accounts to be analyzed by Zite so it can determine your interests and deliver relevant content. Zite will not post anything to your Twitter account. Lastly, Zite tracks “what you do and don’t click on, how much time you spend on a piece of content, what sections you add to your magazine, what sources and topics you pick in the personalization pane, and what you share/send to Twitter and Facebook as well as e-mail through Zite.” http://vimeo.com/20777645 Mix all three of these ingredients together and the result is a pertinent and efficient reading experience. In our tests, the content delivered to our personalized magazine was relevant. This app works as advertised. In addition to the efficacy of the algorithms, Zite also delivers a layout we enjoy for its simplicity and ease of use. The front page of your personalized magazines begins with Top Stories based on the aforementioned methods. Multiple articles appear on one page and others are viewable by swiping. On the right hand side of the Front Page are individual Sections to browse. At any time the Sections button is in the top right corner to easily bounce from one Section to another. Clicking on an article opens up a full page display. Some of the articles are displayed in their native website format while others employ a generic Zite layout. Both are perfectly fine. In the right hand side of every article are some tools including (a) asking if you enjoyed the article (to better hone the algorithm) (b) offering to provide more articles from the article’s source or author (c) providing more content based on some key terms from the article (i.e. iPad, Apple A4) and (d) sharing the article via Twitter, Facebook or e-mail.

'Zite Personalized Magazine’ Is Instantly Likable & UsefulOne issue you will immediately notice is apparent article redundancy. For example, in our Mac section there were multiple articles from different sources about the iPad 2’s release. At first we thought this might become problematic and annoying but never did. Although multiple articles on the same topic may appear, the fact is they are from different sources with potentially different perspectives one might enjoying reading and comparing. Or, just pick the one most interesting to you and read that one. We rather have more choices than less.

Zite is well conceived and executed and instantly a favorite iPad news app for us. Pick it up! Read our other app reviews by clicking here. AppPicker Rating: 5 / 5 Stars App Store link: Zite Personalized Magazine Other apps by Zite, Inc.

Zite

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Zite

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Zite

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