TECH TALK: Israel’s Wibbitz changes the entertainment world

Why TMZ cooperates with an Israeli start-up

By ARIEL SHAPIRA
Updated: DECEMBER 13, 2017 11:54
Israeli startup Wibbitz (photo credit: PR)
Israeli startup Wibbitz
(photo credit: PR)
The world’s largest gossip and entertainment site TMZ, recently signed a collaboration agreement with Israeli start-up Wibbitz, which has developed a technology that automatically converts text articles from websites to videos that can be shared on Facebook and Instagram.
“Our technology is based on artificial intelligence, which connects to TMZ databases and scans the articles to summarize the most interesting content,” Wibbitz CEO and co-founder Zohar Dayan said. “The attractive parts of the summary are automatically changed by your computer into a video segment that is optimized for sharing on social media.
This is how TMZ creates in real time dozens of videos each day without the need for human video editors.”
The deal was signed with the aim of converting articles to video clips that are made especially for mobile viewing and will increase the traffic of the surfers to the site from social networks. It will also increase advertising revenues. According to a study by SimileWeb, which measures traffic, TMZ ranks first in the entertainment world, with more than 70 million unique hits each month. Social networks have a great influence on the visitors’ traffic to the site, and each month they send millions of visitors to it.
Wibbitz predicts a 400% increase in revenues by the end of 2017. It provides services to leading sites in the US and Europe, including Reuters, Forbes, Time Inc., CBSi, Bloomberg and more than 500 content sites. The company was founded in 2011 and has offices in Tel Aviv, New York and Paris. It currently employs 70 people and has plans to double itself to 120 employees.
YouAppi YouAppi, which uses AI-based and predictive-analysis technology to promote premium applications worldwide and create customized user recommendations, was founded in 2011 by Moshe Vaknin and Ofer Grant.
Since then, the company has experienced meteoric growth. Over the past three years, it has recorded a growth rate of 16,230%, following the launch of an advanced technology-based product and by expanding into a target countries characterized by rapid growth, such as Japan and Indonesia.
Another 20 Israeli companies were ranked, but only two of them reached the top 10.
“It is a great honor to receive recognition for recent growth,” YouAppi co-founder and CEO Moshe Vaknin said. “Over the past two years we have experienced rapid growth thanks to two key elements: the advanced technological capabilities we’ve developed, which have enabled us to provide a quality product that optimizes the promotion of applications on mobile, along with global expansion and entry into growing markets.
“Our ability to offer our customers a solution for AI deep technology and predictive analysis, which produces greater effectiveness than what has been available before in mobile computing, combined with the ability to provide information based on 66 parameters, has brought about accelerated growth rates.
In the past two years, we have also entered new markets and expanded our number of representative offices worldwide to 12, with offices in rapidly growing markets such as Japan and Indonesia.”
YouAppi represents 470 leading brands worldwide, manages 17,000 campaigns simultaneously, collects data insights from 1.5 billion users and manages 100 billion monthly exposures. Among the investors of YouAppi ($18 million so far) are AltAir Capital, Glilot Capital Partners and 2B Angels.
If you run a young start-up, have developed an interesting app or have a question, please feel free to contact info@social-wisdom.com.
Translated by Hannah Hochner.