Shameless plug, but this is something we are working on right now.
Social media is a terrible medium for news. Aside from the ability for anyone to post anything, which can easily lead to misinformation, it also sets up the absolute worst incentives. If news organizations are expected to share their reporting for free, and only be able to monetize when someone clicks through to their page -- you end up with clickbait.
It also means that virtually all local news is silenced. Almost by definition, local news appeals to a narrow audience, which doesn't lead to the scale social algorithms favor.
We're trying to take the convenience and brevity of social news updates, but use them to build a new platform that helps reporters and surface trustworthy, local news. We make tools for newsrooms that then syndicates out to the consumer platform, before an article or video is ever even made. (We are to news what OpenTable is to restaurants.) And through rev-shares, our partners succeed when we do.
Please make it clear earlier its US specific. If I go to waitlist, it asks for my ZIP code, showing greyed out 12345, nor does it allow me to select any country. 12345 isn't the format we use here. Kind of an odd way to say 'we don't serve your kind here'.
That being said, I heard in a local podcast about an initiative for local news platform, but more to get directly reporters to get paid instead of a middle man as newspaper (the platform just allowed to select your city, and they had themselves very low margins). Margins for local news are already really thin due to lack of amount of potential interest. Some is even state sponsored. Its a tough market for sure. I forgot the name of the platform (it was partially still being build ie. only a number of pilot cities), which is kind of telling, I guess.
Apologies -- we are US specific at the moment. We have nothing against other countries, of course; but this requires us building relationships with individual news organizations and reporters, and we have to start somewhere -- so we are starting closer to home.
We're journalists ourselves, and know the challenges well. This project was really born out of our frustration seeing so many local newspapers in the US filing for bankruptcy, or being hollowed out by hedge funds. We want local news to succeed, and a lot of that has to do with reclaiming some of the traffic and ad revenue now going to those who are not doing the reporting.
The icons are standardized on every city page, something I dig.
The timeline is shown by default.
People can click on their city/town and even their neighborhood.
After I wrote this, I saw another one, Drimble [2]. I like that even better than Ozoo (the features seem to be on par I just prefer the UI and colours), but I haven't used either TBH.
I don't believe either of these is the one I heard on the podcast. Also, I'm not quite sure how these websites arrange the rights fair and square, and since we're talking about local business and the little men I find that important. I think they get away with it by quoting, which falls under fair use, and then linking to the original source. That's not exactly the same as your product, nor the one I heard in the podcast.
> It also means that virtually all local news is silenced
Every time I visit a local news page, it's 10% content advertised by the headline, and 90% popups, clickbait, and "ads" like, "Drivers over 55 without a DUI are in for a surprise this November!" with a picture of the Centrum Silver guy with a handful of cash.
Exactly -- theyre trying to get whatever they can out of the website. We're hoping to create a more sustainable business model that doesnt turn off visitors.
I tried registering for updates but got a Cloudflare 502. HN "hug of death"?
Once it's sorted out, I'll give it another shot. Quick request: can you please add more details to a faq or something? eg. how much it'll cost for us users, will there be a desktop interface, etc.
Thanks -- I will have a look to see whats going on. We definitely want to have you on board!
There will be a free ad-supported tier for users, along with some form of paid add on, that we are working on now. At the moment, the main consumer offering will be mobile, but if there is interest, of course that is not set in stone.
Should be good now, an annoying configuration issue on a day that we got some unexpected interest! I also think we probably have the signups, even if it didn't display a nice confirmation.
How does this help with information overload? It looks like a new channel of information to add to the existing flows. What am I missing?
If it's reporters notes (like the site says) it means what consumers get isn't distilled into the flow of a story that informs. That is left up to people who consume to do and to do that they need to get all the details. Sounds overwhelming to me. Or, am I missing something?
It does not try to tame the existing firehose, but instead gives a new stream that is limited to only to trustworthy journalists who are bound by our editorial policy (https://www.forthapp.com/docs/policy.html), and with substantive updates.
We know people go to Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/etc to read news because of the convenience, even if it can be riddled with misinformation or just low quality information (i.e. "7 celebrities without makeup!"). We're taking that convenience and backing it up with journalistic integrity.
This has been our working hypothesis; we're building tools for newsrooms to syndicate the piecemeal updates of breaking stories throughout the day, for people who dont want to commit to long articles or videos.
An anonymous source seems materially different from a pseudonymous source, especially when that source is being quoted about their enormous body of work.
Yes, the NYT is one of the few outlets that is doing reasonably well right now. But many newspapers are going out of business, or at least furloughing employees -- employees who already were not earning huge salaries.
If you read the article, and they ask for money to let you do that -- then honor that request. Just because you can hop over a paywall doesnt mean you should.
You don't deserve the downvotes. Just because the technical measures used to protect the content are weak doesn't grant you the right to circumvent it. Hacker-types always seem have this fallacy of "if I can do it, I'm allowed to do it. I understand it -- we're all hackers because we get joy out of breaking technical locks and using things for purposes they weren't intended and rule-layering digital systems. But just because someone uses a cheap lock it doesn't mean you have the right to break it.
Who even cares about the copyright violation vs theft distinction at this point? They're offering access to their content for a price, they're not bothering with draconian DRM and so it's a dick move to just take it.
Because it isn't full articles -- just updates as they happen coming straight from the newsroom, more like tweets. It's not to say that people can't plagiarize, but it wouldn't be as easy or make as much sense as just copy and pasting an article.
There's not much in the post so I'm gonna guess it's a form of content fingerprinting like we see with YouTube's Content ID, plus whatever is used in plagiarism-detection software used in schools and universities.
In reality, the reason why these have failed in the past is human psychology. Think about this with something other than news -- we all have $800 smartphones, but stare at the app store thinking, "hmm...do I really want to spend 99 CENTS?"
When you subscribe to a publication, you have to make decision once. You think about the amount of money against all future potential articles you can read, and decide from there. When you're paying for EACH article, all of a sudden you have to make that decision with every click. Is this article REALLY worth 50 cents?
Not to mention, this incentivizes the totally wrong things. People say they hate clickbait, but the aggregators and social networks that now act as gatekeepers force that kind of behavior -- publishers of course only get paid when you click through to their article. And in this case, it's even more profound -- we're no longer talking about a few cents from display ads, but 50 cents to $1.
I wonder how well it would work if it cost $1 to read an article, but there was an easy way to say "this was a bad article and I want my $1 back" some relatively large fraction of the time. I know that if I had already paid $1 for an article, then read and enjoyed it, I would not be inclined to want my $1 back. However, if I'm being asked to pay $1 just based on the headline, and then the article is clickbait and I have no recourse, I'm probably never going to pay $1 for another article from the same source.
Also, in that system, "90% of readers were satisfied enough to let the author keep their dollar" would be a pretty strong signal of quality (especially so if the platform takes more than a 10% cut: this is one of the rare cases where a higher cut to the middleman might actually result in a better product).
This was how Blendle used to work, and for me at least it was very effective. Despite using it rarely, I probably still spent tens of euros on it. The ability to instantly get my money back if I didn't like an article played a big part in that.
For some reason they changed their model to all-you-can-read for $10 a month, so perhaps it didn't work so well. I stopped using Blendle as a result, though :-/.
Simply habit can keep people paying. Previous to the internet , my routine was to wake up, get dressed and pick up the morning paper to read at the coffee shop.
That was about 50 cents a day.
If the system allows for it, I would probably commit to buying twitter access on a daily basis as I brush my teeth.
Just to hijack this comment for a moment -- we're a startup looking to make local news more profitable and sustainable -- and hopefully reaching a new audience that might not watch local TV news or subscribe to their local newspaper.
If anyone is interested in helping the cause, please email me -- jared AT nillium DOT com . I would love to talk more.
If there are any journalists/news directors/managers on this thread, Nillium is building a system to manage reporting information/logistics for newsrooms. Basically everything for a story up to the point its ready for a CMS. It will provide way better organizing and archiving within individual organizations, and across affiliated newsrooms.
We're still working through our security and encryption protocols, but would love to hear from you what your concerns may be - from the incredibly sensitive investigations to run of the mill police blotter stories.
I'd love to talk to you - jared AT nillium DOT com
I'm a former TV news producer, looking to build a hybrid consulting/SaaS solution for the news industry. There are lots of small-midsize newsrooms who could be operating far more efficiently, but just do not have the tools.
I feel confident in the tech and the product sides of things, but looking for someone who can help with sales/pricing/operations stuff.
You are spot on with this concept. I’ve spoke to a few people in the midsize markets and yes this will work. Think marketplace - content sellers and content buyers (newsrooms). Seed the market by making it categorical, based on the size and shape of the regions.
Social media is a terrible medium for news. Aside from the ability for anyone to post anything, which can easily lead to misinformation, it also sets up the absolute worst incentives. If news organizations are expected to share their reporting for free, and only be able to monetize when someone clicks through to their page -- you end up with clickbait.
It also means that virtually all local news is silenced. Almost by definition, local news appeals to a narrow audience, which doesn't lead to the scale social algorithms favor.
We're trying to take the convenience and brevity of social news updates, but use them to build a new platform that helps reporters and surface trustworthy, local news. We make tools for newsrooms that then syndicates out to the consumer platform, before an article or video is ever even made. (We are to news what OpenTable is to restaurants.) And through rev-shares, our partners succeed when we do.
https://www.forthapp.com is our consumer side, https://www.nillium.com/newsrooms for the newsroom SaaS.