TechCrunch Disrupt winner Qwiki appears to be shifting its focus, from a web-based creation tool to mobile-only.
For background, Qwikis are essentially multimedia presentations, complete with narration. In May, Qwiki announced a new Creator platform for publishers and bloggers that’s used by ABC News and others. And in June, the startup debuted a partnership with Microsoft where Qwikis are embedded into Bing results, and can be played directly inside the search page. Qwiki also offers an iPad app, which has seen 1 million downloads to date.
According to the startup’s site, after Qwiki saw the response to the iPad app and started experimenting with the creation tool and the Bing integration, the company realized that users favored mobile over web. So Qwiki has now built a new experience exclusively for the iPhone. And the web app will be transitioning into a pro tool with details to be announced soon.
From Qwiki’s site, “We hope you’re excited about Qwiki for iPhone. The app combines our expertise in media automation and iOS development into a product that we believe represents the future of storytelling.”
We contacted co-founder and CEO Doug Imbruce, who told us, that “Based on our existing success on iPad as well as user demand it makes complete sense to focus the majority of our efforts on creating the best mobile experience possible. Our iPhone app is over a year in development and with our increased focus will hopefully be an absolutely exquisite experience for all iPhone users. More than anything else it fulfills on Qwiki’s promise of automated media generation, and I believe moves our consumer product from novelty to extreme utility.” He says that the app should be released in a month.
Qwiki has raised $10.5 million from investors including Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, Greylock Partners, and Lightbank.
As we’ve written in the past, Qwiki’s vision is to present a new kind of information experience beyond just packaging existing content; and clearly part of this plan focuses on mobile platforms. It looks like we’ll be seeing more details about what Qwiki has up its sleeve soon, so stay tuned.
