I am so proud for my old friend and partner, the Inverted Pyramid. Thanks to him I and others in my profession have been able, for more than a hundred years, to construct news stories that let readers become their own editors. The whole story may be 100 paragraphs long, but with the Inverted Pyramid, readers can stop after the fifth or sixth paragraph, and know they have the most important information in the story.
The I.P. never got a dime for his work. He has been open-source technology from the beginning, in the 1850s. But today, he showed his worth. Yahoo bought an app called Summly for a reported $30 million.
Right away, Summly will be coming to your mobile device with short summaries of stories you may not have otherwise wanted to read on the small screen. If the summaries feel familiar to you, it's probably because it's the same self-editing you've been doing all these years with the I.P., who never got any credit for it.
He should now receive credit. I suggest a smidgen of the $30 million be used to fund a display at the Newseum, celebrating the I.P.'s power, since 1850, to summarize the lengthiest stories in five paragraphs.
That's all. The app's creator, announcing the Yahoo deal on his Website today, began: "In true Summly fashion, I will keep this short and sweet." That's the spirit.
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