In February 2013, in a technological hub in Larissa, with a backdrop of a gigantic Hogwarts-style library full of “Wired” magazines and scientific books, Nikos Nanas and his partner, Christos Spiliopoulos, during an interview for the “Eurobank” innovation awards, proudly explained to me what “Noowit” was.
Their creation, which takes its name from the Greek words for "mind" and "wit", is an online platform for publishing a digital magazine, which has the ability to adapt to the interests of the reader. In other words, the user of this particular online application has the ability to choose the sources of his information.
Initially, when the researcher at the Institute of Research and Technology of Thessaly of CERTH (Nikos) and the graduate of the Polytechnic School of Thessaly (Christos) described their achievement to me, it was not fully understood what their digital application could do. Until, I started using it. After three days, the system had learned my preferences. Instead of getting confused and wasting time on articles that did not interest me, in my personal journal only “pieces” that I actually wanted to read appeared. The chaos of electronic article writing sorted to perfection! In fact, there was even a gradation, as first of all I came across articles specialized on my searches, and then followed articles that were more generally related to my interests. For example, in sports, news related to European basketball occupied more space, followed by other news related to sports.
"Brand new"
In less than a year, “Noowit” surpassed 5,000 users. However, this number was not enough for its founder, Nikos Nanas, to secure sufficient funding from Greek funds. The precious time lost in long negotiations, which ended in a vacuum, “blocked” the team. It’s a lie, without money its further development was impossible, as people had to be hired to maintain, run and promote the software. They didn’t give up. They overcame their disappointment, continued to self-finance “Noowit” and returned to their product more maturely to improve it – who said that in this life everything happens the first time?
The comments of the first users showed them the way: the application was quite difficult to understand, it had no presence on mobile phones – “how is it possible that everyone uses smart phones to get informed and we were missing from there?”, Nikos Nanas would tell me laughingly in our telephone conversation, as if he had committed the blunder of the century – and, most importantly, it was far from the logic of social media. With enthusiasm and pride, they bent over their mistakes, and working day and night for the last four months, they built from scratch a brand new website, clearly more familiar to the public. For example, the user can not only publish his own personal magazine, but also “follow” (like on Twitter) other people’s magazines.
The renewed “Noowit” made its appearance last Wednesday. Although it has changed a lot, its goal remains the same: to stop the “noise” (“cut the noise!”, is its slogan) created by anarchic online information. But this is usually the case with true visions. No matter how much they change along the way, their initial conception, the reason for which they were born, remains unchanged. And they only come to light when their creators believe in them and do not give up in the first - and subsequent - difficulties. Nikola, have a good trip. Info: www.noowit.com
Source: thessalianews.gr
