Founder here. I left Google because I want to help fix a broken news environment. Perverse incentives have led so many news feeds and articles to feel like piles of clickbait garbage. Brief is my first attempt to build a better news experience that respects your time and helps you focus on what matters. It’s still early, but my team and I are super curious to see what you all think.
Right now we’re iOS only, but we want to build web and Android options. If you’d be interested in either, please let us know here: https://briefnews.typeform.com/to/GxS1WF
Great work! Curious about a couple of things on your app store listing [1]:
1. What does the app's home page look like? What I can see from the screenshots looks like a second-level view to me.
2. When you say "Reports written for you by real human editors" does that mean that you are personally employing someone to write these reports or are they algorithmically selected?
3. How much is the monthly subscription and what does it offer over and above the free version?
> 1. What does the app's home page look like? What I can see from the screenshots looks like a second-level view to me.
You can see the same preview at https://briefbeta.com. If you’re viewing the App Store page on desktop, it drops our video preview that shows the home page (apologies).
> 2. When you say "Reports written for you by real human editors" does that mean that you are personally employing someone to write these reports or are they algorithmically selected?
Yes! We have a newsroom that writes the reports. We use algorithms to personalize your report based on what we know you already know (so you don’t re-read the same boilerplate background all the time), but we think real journalistic judgment is critical.
> 3. How much is the monthly subscription and what does it offer over and above the free version?
The subscription is $4.99/month. We actually don’t offer a free version, though we do give a free trial. We deeply believe that high quality news can’t be funded by ads, which means we have to ask readers to pay. However, we also don’t want high quality news to only be for rich folks. So, if you can’t afford it, just email us (support@broadsheet.tech), and we’ll comp your subscription.
> Yes! We have a newsroom that writes the reports. The subscription is $4.99/month.
I have no experience of the news industry but I would imagine that a newsroom costs money to run and can produce only so many stories a day. So how do you intend to make this scalable and sustainable over the long term?
Yes! A newsroom does cost money, but we think it’s the right thing to invest in. The short answer for how we pay for it: we think we can provide a service in exchange for money.
Many people don’t want “the news” to deliver them endless feeds of articles they’ll never read; they want an easy way to stay informed. We hope to provide focused, finite news for people who don’t have the time or interest to stay on top of Twitter and a bunch of news aggregators all day. Without ads, we don’t need to be so focused on maximizing impressions and user engagement, and can afford to say “you’re all caught up!”
Today, only ~13% of American adults pay for digital news, vs. ~75% that pay for some streaming video service. However, historically, ~90% of households paid for a newspaper. We think there’s a large, untapped market for a better news product.
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 25.3 ms ] threadRight now we’re iOS only, but we want to build web and Android options. If you’d be interested in either, please let us know here: https://briefnews.typeform.com/to/GxS1WF
1. What does the app's home page look like? What I can see from the screenshots looks like a second-level view to me.
2. When you say "Reports written for you by real human editors" does that mean that you are personally employing someone to write these reports or are they algorithmically selected?
3. How much is the monthly subscription and what does it offer over and above the free version?
[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brief-news-for-busy-people/id1...
> Right now we’re iOS only, but we want to build web and Android options. If you’d be interested in either
Yes, definitely interested in the web version.
> 1. What does the app's home page look like? What I can see from the screenshots looks like a second-level view to me.
You can see the same preview at https://briefbeta.com. If you’re viewing the App Store page on desktop, it drops our video preview that shows the home page (apologies).
> 2. When you say "Reports written for you by real human editors" does that mean that you are personally employing someone to write these reports or are they algorithmically selected?
Yes! We have a newsroom that writes the reports. We use algorithms to personalize your report based on what we know you already know (so you don’t re-read the same boilerplate background all the time), but we think real journalistic judgment is critical.
> 3. How much is the monthly subscription and what does it offer over and above the free version?
The subscription is $4.99/month. We actually don’t offer a free version, though we do give a free trial. We deeply believe that high quality news can’t be funded by ads, which means we have to ask readers to pay. However, we also don’t want high quality news to only be for rich folks. So, if you can’t afford it, just email us (support@broadsheet.tech), and we’ll comp your subscription.
I have no experience of the news industry but I would imagine that a newsroom costs money to run and can produce only so many stories a day. So how do you intend to make this scalable and sustainable over the long term?
Many people don’t want “the news” to deliver them endless feeds of articles they’ll never read; they want an easy way to stay informed. We hope to provide focused, finite news for people who don’t have the time or interest to stay on top of Twitter and a bunch of news aggregators all day. Without ads, we don’t need to be so focused on maximizing impressions and user engagement, and can afford to say “you’re all caught up!”
Today, only ~13% of American adults pay for digital news, vs. ~75% that pay for some streaming video service. However, historically, ~90% of households paid for a newspaper. We think there’s a large, untapped market for a better news product.