Comment by nillium | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nillium | Hacker News Reader

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.

https://www.forthapp.com is our consumer side, https://www.nillium.com/newsrooms for the newsroom SaaS.

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.

Thanks, and good luck!

I can't remember the initiative launched in my country, but I did find a website which has a similar implementation [1]. Its only in Dutch though.

The icons above read: Timeline, Small Facts, 911 emergencies, News, Business, Bankruptcies, Wanted, Video, Buildings (literally "look inside"), Airbnb, Events, Permits

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.

[1] https://www.oozo.nl/gemeenten/nieuws

[2] https://drimble.nl

> 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.

desperate attempt to survive in the internet age.

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 hope it works out!

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!

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.

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