With media consumption moving inexorably toward mobile, the experience for getting news on a mobile is fragmented. Every news outlet has its own app, but who wants to open them all every morning? Enter the aggregated news apps, which have gone from Flipboard, Zite and Trove to Yahoo News Digest (born as Summly), NYT Now, Circa and the most recent entrant from Al Jazeera: AJ+. This is still a nascent era for mobile news, and the competition will only get more stiff with News Corp. and others developing yet more apps. So which ones will become dominant players, and which will be sidelined? We only have so much time in our days for news apps, so our favorites have the potential to become major gateways to news — and money-makers.
On this week’s Mediatwits podcast, we’ll immerse ourselves in news apps with teen wunderkind Nick D’Aloisio who founded Summly and sold it to Yahoo (where it became Yahoo News Digest); Circa founding editor David Cohn; and David Perpich, general manager of digital products at the New York Times. Plus, we’ll be joined by regulars Andrew Lih from American University and host Mark Glaser from PBS MediaShift, with Fannie Cohen producing.
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MEDIATWITS BIOS
Andrew Lih is a new media journalist and associate professor of journalism at the American University School of Communication. He is the author of “The Wikipedia Revolution” (Hyperion 2009, Aurum UK 2009) and is a noted expert on online collaboration and journalism. He is a veteran of AT&T Bell Laboratories and in 1994 created the first online city guide for New York City (www.ny.com). Follow him on Twitter @fuzheado.
SPECIAL GUESTS
BACKGROUND
While the early leaders in news aggregation such as Flipboard were keen on personalizing the news experience for each user, the new crop of aggregators decide what’s important for you. And what was once Summly and is now the Yahoo News Digest prides itself on being released just two times per day — similar to the morning and evening editions of good old print newspapers. The app initially used an algorithm to sum up stories into just 400 characters, but now has human editorial input — and licensing deals — from tech giant Yahoo. Yahoo bought Summly for a reported $33 million, and built Yahoo News Digest on top of its architecture. Summly founder Nick D’Aloisio continues to help run the app for Yahoo while taking college courses in London. One big advantage the app might have is it’s the default news source for the new line of Apple Watches. Plus, there’s now a version for iPads.
Circa similarly works to condense news articles into easily digestible “cards,” specifically designed for use on mobile. Matt Galligan, CEO, says that app is meant to “carve out the ability for someone to catch up on news quickly in a mobile environment.” Circa uses writers who consense stories into text boxes that get strung together to create a flash-card style narrative. Because the text is compiled by humans, Circa has the advantage of being able to update stories in the moment, rather than creating new articles. Circa also plans to release a news-summarizing app later this year as the company’s first revenue stream through ads and data licensing.
On the traditional news outlet side, the New York Times’ NYT Now app (only available on iPhones) was designed to appeal to the mobile news consumer. The app features content that is more curated than the print and web versions, and is formatted with unique blurbs unseen in other formats, along with the estimated time it will take you to reach each full article. The idea is to make the paper of record’s content into something scrollable, designed for people who can’t or won’t always read the linked articles. The NYT also employs an editorial team to curate other stories of interest on the wider web — giving it a duality with the best of NYT content and the web. Unlike competitors, though, it will cost you $2/week after a free four-week trial.
Meanwhile, TV network Al Jazeera has released its own AJ+ iPhone app with a nod toward viral video from Vine or NowThis News. AJ+ produces content specially for the iPhone, in the form of card stacks, short videos, features, and explainers. The stacks are easy to navigate and digest quickly. It could be the first step forward for Al Jazeera to create an all-digital network.
Fannie Cohen is the managing producer for the Mediatwits Podcast. Her work has appeared on WNYC New York Public Radio and SiriusXM. You can follow her @yofannie