Industry | Software |
---|---|
Founded | Miami, Florida (2012 | )
Founder | Freddie A. Laker |
Headquarters | , |
Key people | Freddie A. Laker,
CEO Leslie Bradshaw, COO |
Website |
gui |
Guide was a US technology startup company developing a newsreader app that translates text from online news sources, blogs and social media streams into streaming audio and video. The company's apps include animal character readers. [1] The company was founded in 2012 by chief executive officer Freddie A. Laker, and privately launched its mobile app in alpha in February 2013.
The company closed in 2014.[ citation needed]
Guide is a visual newsreader app for personal computers, mobile devices and Smart TV, [2] [3] which uses text-to-speech and avatar technologies to turn text-based online news, blogs and social media updates into video content. [4] [5] [6] These technologies allow Guide to turn articles into news program-style episodes, incorporating video or images from the original source, while the text content of the article or blog post is read aloud by a virtual news anchor. [7] The app creates a "channel" for each site or news source, within which individual blog posts or news articles are separate episodes. [8]
Guide allows users to choose from three different virtual news anchors in the base application, [9] [10] and the company has stated it will offer additional avatars and newsroom backgrounds for purchase. [6] [8] An alpha version of the app, for iPad only, [2] was privately released on February 8, 2013. [4]
Freddie Laker, former vice president of strategy at Sapient Nitro and founder of digital agency iChameleon Group, [6] [2] developed the idea for Guide in 2011 after he noticed the rising trend in Smart TVs and Smart TV content at that year's CES. [8] He observed that the apps for Smart TV did not provide content in a TV-friendly format and decided to create an app that would provide a "TV experience". [11] In January 2013, Laker was joined at the company by chief operating officer Leslie Bradshaw. [12] The company is based in Miami, Florida, and has seven employees as of February 2013 [update]. [8] [13]
Guide closed its seed funding round in February 2013. It raised $1 million from investors including Sapient, the Knight Foundation, MTV founder Bob Pittman, founding Google team member Steve Schimmel, and actor Omar Epps. [3] [4] The company stated that the seed money will be used to focus on further development of the Guide app and pursuing patents for its technology. [3] [6] In February 2013, Guide was one of 65 companies out of 500 applicants selected to demonstrate its app in the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Accelerator in Austin. [10] [14]