nillium

Wrote this a little while back. Most news orgs -- especially local -- are being set up to fail in this environment.

https://blog.nillium.com/news-was-never-meant-for-social-pla...

The problem with misinformation, ultimately, is that it is given a platform. We've reached an inflection point where people can truly believe these mistruths so deeply, that any fact checking is received as a personal attack -- and they get even more defensive.

Facebook (or YouTube, or Twitter, or whoever) can try to come up with even more infoboxes or disclaimers, but it will continue to exist as long as it is given a platform.

The original sin of social media comes down to the idea that anyone can post, and that virality begets virality. Shocking content is presented on the same level as traditional media -- and in many cases, can exceed those traditional news sources' reach.

FWIW, and disclosure -- we're building a platform that aims to combat misinfo by making it only for news. (https://blog.nillium.com/were-not-an-aggregator/).

Our reporters follow an Editorial Policy, that comes with consequences if they break the guidelines. Virtually every respectable news org has something like this -- we're just making ours public. https://www.forthapp.com/docs/policy.html

Until we hold the reporting produced by professional reporters -- reviewed by editors, fact checked, and held in check by an editorial process -- at a higher esteem than what Firstname Bunchanumbers says, misinformation will continue.

Of course, this is not ideal. There is a big difference between journalism and message boards -- though that isn't to say, of course, that there can't room for both.

We've been working on a platform reimagining how local news can operate -- taking whats good from social media (the format and distribution), but maintaining journalistic rigor.

We cannot lose journalism.

https://blog.nillium.com/defending-journalism-to-defend-the-...

This is why we're building a news platform that sets up a different incentive structure than the current status quo. If publishers aren't desperate for clicks, there is no reason to stoop to outrage porn.

https://blog.nillium.com/news-was-never-meant-for-social-pla...

Substack can work for reporters who already have a following -- but we are trying to help those in local markets and earlier in their careers.

From a user perspective, we're looking to give a holistic view of what's happening around you, regardless of which trusted journalist is posting.

Apologies -- For now, yes, we are US specific. This requires a lot of individual connections and deals with newsrooms and reporters, so we had to start somewhere.

Hopefully we can expand in the near future

FWIW, we are working on this. Almost all of the issues listed in this thread can be traced back to the way aggregators and social networks end up monetizing (or not monetizing) news. We're trying something a little different: https://blog.nillium.com/were-not-an-aggregator/

But that all requires an informed populace. The problem with Facebook (and others, of course) is that it warps all financial incentives for the publishers, while sapping revenue away from them.

Now if you want any revenue at all, which is required for surviving, you need to have clickbaity headlines so you can get traffic to your page. And even that assumes that certain news can find an audience; local news especially tends to fail in that regard because it by definition appeals to a smaller group of people.

https://blog.nillium.com/news-was-never-meant-for-social-pla...

This is more like Amazon diverting the money that used to go to the book authors back to themselves, and then when the authors and publishers start layoffs and go bankrupt, people ask why the writing is so bad.

Shameless plug, but we're working on something to take the good of social without the predatory leanings or misaligned interests: https://blog.nillium.com/why-were-building-forth/

Continuing the discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25259370

OP here: this is meant as a follow up to the comments in this thread from yesterday:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25249414

OP here -- Decided to post this after this thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25154282) yesterday.

As we said there, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

https://blog.nillium.com/what-can-napster-teach-local-news/

Advertisers do not directly care about real names.

What matters is journalistic integrity. We are in a time when reporters are consistently hammered for quoting anonymous sources.

How is this not theft?

Journalism is expensive. Of course, there are other business models (full disclosure, we're building one too: https://blog.nillium.com/what-can-napster-teach-local-news/) but circumventing a paywall is not the answer.

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.

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.

We're working on another way for disseminating news. It might make plagiarism a little more difficult, while also working a little better for our audience: https://blog.nillium.com/what-can-napster-teach-local-news/

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.

For what its worth, we're trying a different tack -- especially when it comes to local news: https://blog.nillium.com/what-can-napster-teach-local-news/

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

Can you email me? I'd love to chat.

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.

In NYC for now, considering LA too.

jared AT nillium DOT com

OP here. Just trying to get some basic information about how people ACTUALLY want their news/consume it, really to validate an idea for a startup.

Curious, as someone who is in the early stages of planning a B2B SaaS company -- can you talk any more to that? How do you get the clients without a product to show them?