Chandler teamed up with former co-worker Greg Veen to create Smashing, which allows users to submit their own content and vote on the app's AI-powered recommendations. The app also offers summaries of the news, key excerpts, and interesting pull quotes. Despite its use of AI, Chandler believes Smashing will drive traffic to online publishers rather than lessen it. The startup has raised $3.4 million in seed funding from various investors.
Key takeaways:
- Goodreads' co-founder Otis Chandler is launching Smashing, an AI and community-powered content recommendation app, which aims to surface the internet's hidden gems and connect users to their interests.
- Smashing is designed to help online publishers by driving traffic to their sites, rather than replacing them with AI-generated summaries of news.
- The app allows users to submit their own content and vote on the content shared by others. It also offers AI-generated summaries, key excerpts, and interesting pull quotes.
- Smashing has raised $3.4 million in seed funding from various investors including True Ventures, Blockchange, Offline Ventures, Advancit Capital, and Power of N Ventures.