Cue started life in 2010 as Greplin, a "personal search engine" that fed on the same data sources as Cue and served results as a user typed a query—just as Google's "instant" Web search does. Cue retains that search function and uses the same technology to power its automatic features. Gross and Walker decided to transform Greplin into Cue after seeing how people used their search tool. They claim that Cue will have much broader appeal than its predecessor because it requires less effort from the user. Cue is supported by $4.8 million of investment funding, some of it from notable tech figures such as recently departed Facebook CTO Bret Taylor and Gmail inventor Paul Buchheit.
If Cue can live up to its founders' claims and help automatically manage users' lives via smart phone, it could well become a target of a buyout by Google or Apple as they try to make their mobile operating systems more compelling. Cue's focus on a person's own information makes it an interesting counterpart to Siri. The company's founders say they are committed to remaining independent because Cue must be able to integrate with all types of online accounts to be fully functional. When large tech companies compete, however, they tend to make it impossible to link different services.
Cue already makes some money from premium accounts that allow a user to connect it to professional services such as the project tracker Basecamp and the corporate social network Yammer. Walker says that Cue's focus on specific tasks could make ads in the app valuable, much like those that appear next to Web searches. For example, an ad could suggest a hotel after Cue learns that someone has booked a flight.
Cue, email, smartphones, social networksView the Original article
No comments:
Post a Comment