iCurrent Inc. Fact Sheet

iCurrent is a young company with a seasoned team of product-builders who have been hard at work on their take on the future of news.

What is iCurrent?

iCurrent is a personalized news and information service that simplifies the way consumers stay current across their interests.

iCurrent acts as a personalized newspaper front page, discovering and prioritizing relevant articles across a user’s interests from thousands of newspapers, magazines, websites and blogs. Based on the user’s active engagement with the service, iCurrent adapts over time to ensure content is finely-tuned to the user’s interests even as they evolve. Users can drill down for more information as well as share their interests with others. iCurrent also delivers relevant news to access points beyond the web, including email and mobile devices.

iCurrent currently collects links to more than 27,000 newspapers, magazines, websites, and blogs with hundreds of new sources being added each month. It also provides a comprehensive Channel Gallery as a starting point for tracking personal interests.

To learn more, visit our in-depth overview of how iCurrent works.

What problem does iCurrent solve?

iCurrent eliminates the frustration and overhead associated with visiting multiple general news or niche media sites, scanning email newsletters and alerts, and maintaining RSS readers and start pages. iCurrent delivers news and information personalized for each user to one location with a simple interface for selecting and refining topics.

How Is iCurrent different from other sites?

  • iCurrent provides high personal relevance across the breadth, depth, and context of an individual’s interests.
  • iCurrent provides a complete, balanced experience across users’ own interests and across general news and their specific interests, which helps them discover new topics.
  • iCurrent changes and is adjustable to the ebb-and-flow of each user’s evolving interests.

What stage is iCurrent in?

iCurrent is really just getting going with building a user base with an opening to the public on January 26, 2010. This follows the private beta started in October 2009, which has produced extremely positive user reactions. The product was developed in the 2 years prior with over 30 releases to alpha users as the service was built and refined.

Here are some typical user quotes:

  • My first impressions are very positive, I have never been able to find a homepage that covers more than one or two of my personal interests . . .I could not think of a more satisfying home page.

  • I love the layout and that I can access all of the topics I have chosen without having to navigate away from the home page. I’ve been trying to find a good way to collect all my news into one place like a RSS Reader but this is far better. Thanks!!
  • So far so good. It’s only been a few days, but I don’t check iGoogle anymore.
  • I am enjoying iCurrent quite a bit. So far, the customization is exactly what I was hoping for. I’m being exposed to some topics and articles that I might otherwise not have discovered.
  • Once everything was configured, I loved the layout of the front page. It is much better than the way NY Times, USA Today (even their new format) and WSJ do it. I also love the concept of tuning a ‘paper’ to have what I want in it.
  • I’m quite pleased with iCurrent. The concept of having all my points of interest readily available is akin to going to a buffet with all my favorites. Keep up the great work!
  • I have already made it my home page on three machines.

How will iCurrent make money?

It’s a good question which has no certain answer right now. As a broad consumer media service, iCurrent anticipates offering a free version of the service into the future. Revenue will likely be derived from a mixture of advertising, sponsorship, and affiliate fees. However, the publishing industry is in a period of widespread experimentation in search of new models and iCurrent will adapt as necessary.

What is the Company Background?

  • iCurrent began full development in 2007 on its service for the broad consumer audience.
  • iCurrent opened up its service to the public in January 2010 after a short private beta that began October 2009.
  • The service was tested over an 18 month period prior with over 500 users and over 2 releases a month with new features and redesigns to find the experience that works for a broad audience.
  • The team has a combined 100 years of product-building experience in search, text analytics, news delivery, content curation and user experience at companies such as Yahoo, Ask, Xerox PARC, Inxight and SAP.
  • iCurrent received its $3M of funding to date from Crosslink Capital, lead by Peter Rip.

Team and Founders

Ramana Rao, Co-founder and Code-Cutting CEO
Peter Rip, Partner, Crosslink
Todd Cass, Code-cutting VP of Engineering
Michael Ferguson, Director of User Experience
David Price, Site Editor & Content Curator
Moshe Cohen, Co-founder & Senior Engineer
Brian Neuman, Application Architect
Linda Uyechi, Entity Catalog & Taxonomy Curator

Advisors At Wild

Yossi Acrich, “Co-founder and Consultant
Erik Adigard,Principal, M-A-D Studio
Stephen Bernstein, VP Analytics, MySpace
John Seely Brown, Chief of Confusion
Esther Dyson, Cosmonaut in Training
Penny Finnie, Co-founder, Ask and Chocolatier
Cyndi Stivers, Managing Editor, EW.com

Company Location

400 Oyster Point Blvd., Suite 124
So. San Francisco, CA 94080
650.225.9500

www.icurrent.com
www.twitter.com/icurrent

Press Contact

Andrea Cousens
630.420.7774
press@icurrent.com