With the looming death of Google Reader, many news-hungry netizens are looking for new sources to feed their hunger for news and opinions, and several companies are hoping this will create opportunity for curated news models.
One is Toronto startup Newsana.com, which will have its official launch next week. It takes a non-technical approach to its news content and aggregation, with pre-screened members choosing the content they want to share and discuss. From there, Newsana.com’s “news junky” members vote on and discuss their favourite stories in a range of topics, with the top stories in each category being showcased for non-members to read and enjoy.
News curation service Curata, which has previously focused on an enterprise-grade curation engine for publishers, is taking more direct aim at Google in a bid to capitalize on Reader’s demise. In a blog called “Why the World Doesn’t Need Google Reader Anymore,” the vendor teased an offering called Curata Reader, a consumer implementation of its curation engine.
Rather than rely just on a user community, Curata relies on algorithms to learn over time what news someone is interested in, and adjust the news they’re offered accordingly.
“After Google announced that they are killing Google Reader, we realized that we were perfectly positioned to develop a compelling alternative.” said Pawan Deshpande, CEO and founder of Curata, in a statement. “On the technology side, we have also engineered an advanced content processing pipeline that can be quickly re-purposed as an intelligent feed reader.”
They’re not offering specifics on Curata Reader yet, but they said the offering will be in select beta testing soon, with more news to come.