Why create another news app?
I'm developing a news app with some good folks – Andrew Preble, Ben Eckel, and Joel Wietelmann. Hundreds of news apps already exist, so why should we create another one?
In the absence of New Orleans' standard daily – the Times Picayune, a once daily paper now distributing only 3 days a week – I wanted to fill the void.
I don't subscribe to the paper. I read most content on the web. Twitter is my primary source of breaking news. The rest of my news is a spread shot of articles and topics from friends and colleagues mostly discovered by word of mouth. Locale is really important.
Sources like Twitter, Facebook, Flipboard, Prismatic, (and a trail of similar social-driven platforms) make news exposure easy to personalize. Who we follow decides the content that's exposed to us.
Some apps lean on more calculated personalization, working a selection of topics/categories into the algorithm.
But there's a problem. I am not an editor. I do not have time to curate the content I consume, to deliver stories that interest me, and especially to determine which stories I should be interested in.
Furthermore, not every social connection is created equal. Fine tuning the hierarchy of my social connections is far too involving, and automated prioritization is far from perfect.
Content creation multiplies every day. It's obvious that editors and algorithms will play a huge role in shaping the future of content curation.
Today always relates to yesterday. Every story follows a series of threads, and we hope to expose those threads. Old stories need to have permanence. Tracing history should be easy.
The crux of the Times Picayune's transition is that they decided to fully focus on the online arena. Their initial move found 200 some writers – their content creators – without work. You can sell more ads online. Sell more clicks. Sell more eyes.
The end result isn't a newspaper anymore. It's a strategy to squeeze as many clicks as you can out of each visitor. Â I suppose this is the way newspapers have always worked.
Dalton Caldwell's proposal resonates clearly. Build a product that's devoted to the people using it. The dichotomy that forms from selling advertising is an awful diversion from even the most genuine ideals. But can something like Caldwell's model successfully work in the news industry?
For the first time in my life, I see this opportunity to coalesce my worlds – my collegiate life of Journalism and my daily life as a developer.
We want to build a platform for writers and readers. An app that delivers consistently relevant content to a local audience. Multiple sources woven together in a story thread. A place for journalists to make a name for themselves and garner acknowledgement well-deserved.
