Prismatic (app)

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title: "Prismatic (app)" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["2012-software", "english-language-mass-media", "news-aggregator-software", "ios-software", "mobile-social-software"] description: "Social news curation and discovery app" topic_path: "general/2012-software" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prismatic_(app)" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Social news curation and discovery app ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox website"]

Field	Value
name	Prismatic
company_type	Private
founder	Bradford Cross, Aria Haghighi
location_city	San Francisco, California
location_country	United States
area_served	Worldwide
industry	Internet
programming_language	Clojure, ClojureScript
launch_date
current_status	Closed in December 2015 (news app)
commercial	Yes
logo	Prismatic logo, June 2014.png
logo_size	100px
screenshot	Prismatic Homepage screenshot, June 2014.png
screenshot_size	220px
caption	Prismatic’s homepage in June 2014
language	English
website_type	Social network service, News aggregator
website
::

| name = Prismatic | company_type = Private | founder = Bradford Cross, Aria Haghighi | location_city = San Francisco, California | location_country = United States | area_served = Worldwide | industry = Internet | programming_language = Clojure, ClojureScript | launch_date = | current_status = Closed in December 2015 (news app) | commercial = Yes | logo = Prismatic logo, June 2014.png | logo_size = 100px | screenshot = Prismatic Homepage screenshot, June 2014.png | screenshot_size = 220px | caption = Prismatic’s homepage in June 2014 | language = English | website_type = Social network service, News aggregator | website =

Prismatic was a social news curation and discovery application for various Web browsers and mobile devices running iOS. It combined machine learning, user experience design, and interaction design to create a new way to discover, consume, and share media. Prismatic software used social network aggregation and machine learning algorithms to filter the content that aligns with the interests of a specific user. Prismatic integrated with Facebook, Twitter, and Pocket to gather information about user's interests and suggest the most relevant stories to read.

Prismatic initially launched in 2012 for web browsers and the iPhone, followed by the release of an iPad app on December 19, 2013.

On December 20, 2015, the company closed its consumer-facing apps and focused on offering its machine learning algorithms to publishers and hedge funds.

Prismatic was produced by Prismatic, Inc., a United States–based software company founded in 2010 by Bradford Cross and Aria Haghighi and headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Features

The Prismatic app was centered on a feed of news stories. Users can share stories to connected services like Twitter and Facebook, save stories for later reading, comment on stories, and browse tens of thousands of topics.

::quote

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History

Though the Prismatic app was featured on the front page of the Apple app store, and Prismatic received $15 million funding back in 2012, the industry of news aggregation apps have been difficult to break through and Prismatic had to close their doors on December 20, 2015.

Invention

Prismatic was founded by Bradford Cross and Aria Haghighi in 2010. Before starting Prismatic, Cross was a head of research at Flightcaster, a Y Combinator funded startup. Haghighi received a BS in Mathematics at Stanford and completed an NLP and machine learning focused PhD at UC Berkeley before joining Prismatic.

The initial technical and design research was completed in the winter of 2010. The first prototypes were ready by April 2011. Invitation only beta opened in April 2012 followed by a public web app release in June 2012. An iPhone app was released in August 2012. Prismatic released version 2.0.0 on Apple's App Store in December 2013.

Funding

Prismatic raised $1.5 million in venture financing in early 2012 from investors including Battery Ventures and Javelin Venture Partners. On December 5, 2012 Prismatic announced that it had raised $15 million in Series A from Jim Breyer and Yuri Milner

Public response

Prismatic had been positively reviewed by multiple news outlets, including The New York Times, TechCrunch, Business Insider, GigaOm, AllThingsD, and PandoDaily.

Apple had repeatedly featured the Prismatic iOS app. Prismatic had an average rating of 4.5 stars on the iOS App Store, from over 2,000 user ratings.

Technology

Prismatic primarily used Clojure and ClojureScript in production. Prismatic has open-sourced a large part of its technology stack on GitHub, including Plumbing, om-tools, Schema, fnHouse, and hiphip.

References

References

1. (12 December 2015). "As personalized news evolves, Prismatic is closing its apps".
2. (20 June 2012). "Prismatic Opens Its News Discovery Service To Everyone, Adds Facebook And Google Reader Sign-Ups".
3. (23 August 2012). "News Discovery Startup Prismatic Is Ready For The Masses, Thanks To Its New iPhone App".
4. "Prismatic Social News App Overhauls for a Better Personal Interest Graph".
5. "As personalized news evolves, Prismatic is closing its apps".
6. (7 June 2012). ""In the Studio," Prismatic's Bradford Cross Wants to Reinvent Social News".
7. "Prismatic Social News App Overhauls for a Better Personal Interest Graph".
8. (5 December 2012). "Prismatic Gets $15M from Jim Breyer and Yuri Milner to Attack the Impossible Problem of Bringing You Relevant News".
9. [https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/news-reader-apps/ The Rise And Fall Of Venture-Backed News Readers In One Chart]
10. (2 October 2012). "Prismatic's Bradford Cross: First we understand media, then the world".
11. (7 June 2012). ""In the Studio," Prismatic's Bradford Cross Wants to Reinvent Social News".
12. (3 April 2012). "Prismatic Hopes to Create a New Category of Social News".
13. [https://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2012/12/05/accel-jim-breyer-yuri-milner-back-social-news-startup-prismatic/ Accel, Jim Breyer, Yuri Milner Back 'Social News' Startup Prismatic - Venture Capital Dispatch - WSJ]. Blogs.wsj.com (2012-12-05). Retrieved on 2014-02-27.
14. (3 April 2012). "Prismatic Hopes to Create a New Category of Social News".
15. (19 December 2013). "Prismatic Updates Its News Discovery App To Bring You The Best Of Everything You're Interested In".
16. "This New Web App Will Make You Want To Ditch Google Reader".
17. (3 May 2012). "Prismatic wants to be the newspaper for a digital age".
18. "Prismatic Social News App Overhauls for a Better Personal Interest Graph".
19. "Finding News Is One Thing, Understanding It Is Another—Prismatic Does Both, and Fast".
20. (5 December 2012). "Prismatic: A Personalized and Social News Reader". Wall Street Journal.
21. "Bringing functional to the frontend: Clojure + ClojureScript for the web".
22. "Why Prismatic Goes Faster With Clojure".
23. "Prismatic on GitHub".
24. "Plumbing on GitHub".
25. "om-tools on GitHub".
26. "Schema on GitHub".
27. "fnHouse on GitHub".
28. "hiphip on GitHub".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::