Mediaboss Marketing

If you want to find news articles worth reading, you could do a lot worse than to simply check out what your friends share on Twitter and Facebook. That isn't exactly a revelation. It's closer to a self-evident statement of fact.

Trouble is, finding those recommendations can be surprisingly tough. They're there in your social feeds, but submerged in a surging sea of selfies, jokes, personal reflections, viral lists, cat videos, and various other things which have nothing to do with current events. Blink, and something worthwhile may pass you by.

Clever use of technology, of course, might be able to help people discover articles on their social networks which are likely to pique their interest. It could be that a proprietary algorithm or a machine-learning breakthrough is called for--or at least a uniquely elegant user interface.

Or maybe the solution is obvious: Just get rid of everything else that isn't a recommendation of an article by a friend, and then put the most popular links at the top.

In other words, do what Nuzzel does.

The app from a startup of the same name, created by veteran entrepreneur Jonathan Abrams, isn't yet a breakout hit, even among web-savvy types. But its approach is resonating with some pretty influential people, such as GigaOm founder, venture capitalist, and Fast Company columnist Om Malik, who recently rhapsodized that Nuzzel "has made my life just better."

If Nuzzel has a secret sauce, it's that it has no secret sauce. All it does is show articles shared by your friends, sorted by popularity. The interface is utilitarian at best. But as it turns out, it's a powerful way to put worthwhile reading material right in front of you, where you cant miss it. The experience feels both personalized and serendipitous, and distinctly different from those of the bevy of mobile news apps which bring more technology and resources to the challenge, such as Circa, Inside, and Yahoo News Digest.

By filtering the din of Facebook and Twitter down to a manageable list of articles which people cared enough about to share, Nuzzel appeals to folks for whom the sheer volume of material on social networks is intimidating. But it also caters to digitally intrepid types who fret that they might fall behind no matter how voracious their consumption of social feeds.

For years I have wanted a DVR for Twitter for when I am away, says venture capitalist Chris Sacca, who was a Nuzzel addict before he became an investor in it, via his firm Lowercase Capital. What did I miss? What's the news today? What are the people I care about all talking about? No one does real-time better than Twitter. But, if I am offline for a few hours and then log back in, I am always curious what I missed."

Nuzzel is that DVR. And despite the fact that it hasnt even arrived on Android phones yet--it's currently an iPhone app and a website--it can be consumed in a variety of ways, making it an unexpectedly rich experience.

See original here:
The News According To Nuzzel