The $30 million spokesperson
Yahoo dropped a large sum for a news startup created by 17-year-old Nick D’Aloisio. Now reports say Yahoo expects the kid to be a spokesperson of sorts.
On Monday, Yahoo bought Summly, the news-reader app that D’Aloisio founded when he was 15. Although an official price wasn’t mentioned, Kara Swisher, ace reporter at All Things D, said Yahoo paid $30 million for the app. (A Yahoo spokesperson told PR Daily the company does not comment on rumors or speculation.)
According to Swisher, the tech giant plans to shutter Summly, incorporate its technology, and trot out D’Aloisio, who is now 17, for the media. In other words, tech publications and bloggers are calling it a $30 million PR move on Yahoo’s part—a bid to make Yahoo more relevant to the younger, mobile-loving demographic.
That helps explain the steep price tag for Summly, which reportedly had fewer than one million downloads. An anonymous source “close to the deal” told Swisher:
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