(Updated Dec. 7, after shutdown of the app.)

Zite was a wonderful app, and yet Flipboard Inc.'s killed it.

As Katherine Boehret wrote in her seminal 2011 review for The Wall Street Journal, "As someone who is regularly overwhelmed by information overload, just on technology news alone, I found Zite to be a huge help. I realized every time I grabbed my iPad, I anxiously checked this app to see what new content it gathered for me. And I found myself reading stories from sources I don't usually read."

In the years since its launch, I've headed or helped lead three major news organizations, and it's proven invaluable and irreplaceable. Zite was my go-to source for news when I awakened, before I went to sleep and every idle moment in between. It fueled my social media posts like no other source.

Unlike other news-reader apps, notably Flipboard, which has acquired Zite, Zite doesn't require repeated flipping or other interaction to get users right to the text -- which is, after all, the essence of a news-reader.

I recommended it to each of my journalism students at Chicago's Roosevelt University, and to every member of my team at Rivet Radio.

Zite's been acquired by Flipboard, which has now executed plans to retire it.

This must not stand.

Revive Zite.

Or at least release the code so someone else can revive it?