Like music, news is a super tough industry to compete in (read @jason's post on it here). Nuzzel has some similarities and does a pretty darn good job (🙌 @abrams).
Curious what makes Lumi particularly different. Looking forward to giving it a try myself. 😊
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@rrhoover@jason@abrams thanks for your interest Ryan!
I think consumer demand for discovery and consumption of news is still amazingly underserved. Facebook and Twitter are good at network–based discovery, but offer abhorrent reading experience (Instant Articles are but a minor improvement). Pocket and Flipboard are great at consumption, but with limited discovery. Prismatic was only good at recommendations (content–based discovery). Nuzzel takes some of the pain out of consuming news on Twitter, which is enough already for many to be loyal fans.
Lumi News is very strong in two areas: backend and user experience.
Lumi UX
– zero friction
– no decisions what to click or read next
– little to no loading time
– encourages involved reading vs skimming / browsing
Lumi Backend
– relatively simple (zero chance of AI self–awareness)
– fast and scalable
– very good at topic modeling, especially for news and stories
– combines the best of network–based and content–based approaches
There's still a ways to go for Lumi from «unique» to «indispensable», but for me the experience is already a mix of the best features of many other apps. Personally, I still use Twitter + Pocket more to find and read news, but this has been gradually shifting as Lumi News becomes smarter and niftier.
@rrhoover@jason@abrams Hey Ryan, you hit the nail on the head! We did the music thing and came out smiling. Now recommendation and discovery is a core feature of any music app (hey @flaneur at https://www.producthunt.com/tech...). We like tough spaces, it shows that there is a need.
The News space is in need of a shot in the arm. And yes, many people try because they also see that need. We think we have a unique approach which is based on two things: 1. Show users stuff to read straight away, using the best in machine learning to make sure it's the right stuff, and 2. Only show them one thing at a time so they're not distracted by the endless supply of the interweb.
We are also different in terms of content. We show stuff from 50,000+ publishers but we keep it simple: Users ultimately want a selection from this content, not thousands of choices to make and boxes to tick. We give them a simple stream to read and don't expect any other input from them. After reading some time on Lumi we have enough data to figure out what you like. Connecting Twitter or Facebook makes it learn faster but is not required.
Sorry got longer than I thought. Give it a try...
@buttobasefm What is the precise pain point that is so large that's going to get people to try a new news app to solve it? Personally, I believe most general news is irrelevant, and am constantly looking for ways to read less and less of it. B2B/industry news is completely necessary, but for me the industry blogs/publications do a fairly good job of curating that. (I'd actually argue even they cover too much). @rrhoover@jason@abrams@flaneur
@drewmeyers You are right, there is constant battle to find the interesting bits, this is where our first point comes in: relevance. Our second one is: no setup and maintenance , Lumi just learns from what you read and keeps on giving you the good stuff without you having to do anything extra. No optimised rss/twitter setup necessary. Basically news discovery for my mum (hint: she is not very tech savvy) @buttobasefm@rrhoover@jason@abrams@flaneur
@mainstream1001@buttobasefm right, that's the model Hinge tried to follow as well in the dating space. But eventually, results get less and less relevant because the reality is there aren't enough relevant results...the option becomes either a) show me nothing or b) show me irrelevant people. Pretty much every app takes path 2... which as a user, isn't what I want.
I understand there are different type of users of course, so maybe there is indeed a big market for this I'm not aware of.
The Lumi News iOS app represents the MVP of the Lumi Social News Android app. But here a spoiler alert: hold tight, because our iOS team is very motivated to overtake and lead on what we are planning next on the product. This is very exciting time for all of us. We invite you all to try the app and get it touch with us via the "Send feedback" link in the app. I strongly believe we can learn from the best to take this project to the next level and since I don't see any better candidate than the ProductHunt community for that, I thank you all in advance for giving us this opportunity!
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Hi! I'll be checking this out for sure, but I'm concerned about how this might be another step toward everybody being in their own information bubble. It's good for people to hear about what they are interested in, but it seems to me that news providers have a social responsibility to NOT only report what people want to see and hear (and NOT just pass the buck on providing or seeking this type of news). I'm sure you're aware of this criticism of "personalized news" in general, so I'm curious what steps you take to make sure that Lumi News meets these bubble-bursting duties. Or maybe you see the ethical obligations of news providers differently? Curious to hear your thoughts!
@rockettestpilot Hey James, we definitely know the bubble issue. We believe with the wealth of information available the first mission is to help individuals navigate this space. Exposing everyone to everything cannot be the answer.
But let me be clear, when we say "News" we mean anything that you can read, which is not in the slightest limited to current affairs type news, but braodly speaking articles. But "Lumi Articles" sounds a bit lame. We cannot compete with organisations with correspondents in each country. And we already make sure we mix in the days most important items. And also we are far from being the only news source people use, if we ever bear that responsibility we will address this in a different way. For now it's all about giving you interesting stuff to read whenever you feel like it. let's see what happens!
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The speed of this app blew me away. No matter how many stories you swipe away there is always a new one readily loaded.
@partialmark thanks for that. Yes, speed is a critical feature often under-invested in. Look at Google chrome and how they made that feature a first class object. If I remember correctly their feature set was fast, easy, and safe.
I downloaded Lumi and gave it a try. I like the simple swipe experience although I wonder how a list view would compare in terms of engagement metrics.
Are you planning on splitting up your recommendations and trending stories into different verticals? Technology, finance, etc.
Weren't Lumi more focused on events and engaging audiences? News is a very crowded market, so why did Lumi create this and what do they hope to accomplish?
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The personalized news app from the founders of Last.fm — Felix Miller and Martin Stiksel — finally comes to iOS.
Tech details: http://www.alistdaily.com/digita...
Profile piece: http://venturebeat.com/2016/05/0...
Industry context: http://www.theguardian.com/media...
— smarter and more personalized than Nuzzel
— much longer tail than Flipboard
— simpler and faster than Apple News
— stronger focus than Facebook Instant Articles
— easier than Twitter + Pocket
For me Lumi News is all about experience. You always get one story at a time, no paralysis over what headline to click or which end to approach my endless Pocket queue from. The recommendation engine is learning in real–time, based on what articles I like and read through.
Connecting Twitter and Facebook helps, but is not required to get your personalized feed.
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