In a world packed with more news aggregation services and RSS readers than we could ever need, only a few manage to rise to the top. News360 is an example of one such service, and we have mentioned it several times here on BGR. The app is available across multiple platforms including iOS, Android, QNX and Windows Phone, and has become a very popular option thanks to its beautiful UI and its unique approach to news delivery. Historically, the app has provided users with news collected from more than 5,000 sources across a variety of categories, weeding through them and presenting each story from a single source. Readers looking to delve deeper into a story can then browse through a list of other publications that have covered it, and then read the stories as they choose. Now, News360 does all that and more, as the just-released News360 2.0 adds personalization services as well as a Web app, opening the service up to anyone with a PC and an Internet connection. What’s more, the service can now analyze your activity across social networks to create an interest graph and custom tailor news for each individual user. “We don’t just look at your ‘Likes’, we look at a wide swath of actions: bookmarks, subscriptions, and the items you share to gain an understanding of what you like to read,” News 360 CEO Roman Karachinsky said in a statement. “This process is completely transparent: we’ll show you what your interest graph looks like and let you edit it to refine your experience even further.” These new features are now available for the iPad and Honeycomb versions of the app, as well as the new Web app. News360’s full press release follows below.
News Gets Personal with News360 2.0: Discover All The News That Matters On Any Mobile Device and the Web
Popular Newsreader Launches Web Version, Major Upgrades for iPad and Android Tablets; Introduces First “Reverse Search” Engine Based on Analysis of Your Social Cloud
San Francisco, Calif., August 10, 2011 – News360, the popular cross-platform newsreader that looks at the world’s top stories from every angle, today released News360 2.0, which introduces a Web-based version of the app, and upgrades for iPad and Android Honeycomb tablet users. The new release marks a major upgrade that introduces a sophisticated content personalization feature designed to discover the most relevant articles tailored to each user from more than 5,000 sources across the globe. News360 2.0 also introduces features like detailed story chronologies and sharing integrations with Google Plus and Evernote. The free app is available from the App Store and Android Market, and at news360.com.
News360 2.0 goes beyond broad categories to get to the heart of what matters to each user. With permission, News360 analyzes a user’s activity across social and Web services like Evernote, Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader to build a unique interest graph and uncover persistent interests and underlying topic areas. “We don’t just look at your ‘Likes’,” says Roman Karachinsky, CEO, News360. “We look at a wide swath of actions: bookmarks, subscriptions, and the items you share to gain an understanding of what you like to read. This process is completely transparent: we’ll show you what your interest graph looks like and let you edit it to refine your experience even further.”
“With this release, we’re tapping into the power of ‘reverse search’ to bring users the news they really want,” Karachinsky adds. “We start by examining dozens of signals within a single article, revealing contextual subtleties far beyond a broad topic area. Knowing the detailed semantic map of an article, we can match it to each user’s individual interest graph to identify the person most likely to find it interesting.”
Simultaneously, News360 uses linguistics and semantic analysis to monitor and understand more than 700,000 entities and 100,000 unique articles daily, looking at the quality of the writing, tone, subject, source, author and much more. Gaining a deep understanding of both user and content allows for seamless matchmaking, creating a “reverse search” effect where quality content finds its ideal user.
The newly released Web-based version of News360 allows users to sync their interest graph across News360 for mobile phones, tablets and the Web. Users can also share parts of the interest graph with their friends, allowing them to integrate the results into their own news experience. Updates for iPhone, Android Smartphones, Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry devices are due out later this fall.
“Our mission is to provide a single platform that filters through the noise and helps you stay informed and save time, no matter which device you are on,” says Karachinsky. “But that could mean different things to each user: keeping up on the biggest world events, local news, social updates, commentary, or blog posts about obscure hobbies. There is no other option out there that brings all this content together under one umbrella and packages it into an experience that’s fun and easy to navigate on the web or on the go, except News360.”
News360 has been downloaded more than 500,000 times and maintains a five-star average rating across 2,100 reviews in the App Store.
