We spent a lot of time making all kinds of features for our news curation app, Inside, but the numbers kept saying the same thing: people just wanted to quickly browse the top news. So we made a simple, streamlined app called TL;DR to just give you the news right f*cking now, with conversational, jokey headlines to make it fun to read.
Take a look. Would love some thoughts and feedback.
@clarkvalberg@jason thanks pal... means a lot coming from the product expert who built the product we built TLDR in!!!!!! I think you just ripped a hole in the space-time-product continuum!!!
I haven't even checked out the product yet (I will a bit later today) but my favorite part is that @jason stayed up to post this himself and then hang out to answer comments. You've had your f'u money exit + worth an additional 10s if not 100s of millions on the Uber deal. And yet still hungry for product feedback and engagement with users. Respect.
@mishachellam i'm in it for the Hunt comments..... always! can i interest you in the LAUNCH Incubator or This Week in Startups while we're at it?!?! #hustle #neversleeps
@brianoflondon that is odd... ping adam AT inside.com and we'll figure it out.
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No problems in Germany on a Mac.
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@jason@brianoflondon seem that I'm having the same problem. I am also from Europe. Launching the TL;DR on iphone6 and no news loads, only have a blank white screen with a line and the setting icon.
Nice! I was going to ask what sets you apart from other instant news apps out there, but I just installed and loved how I didn't have to *do* anything to start reading quick news. It was just there for me - no signup or "pick my interests". Loved it.
The headlines are a nice touch too - just a little bit of irreverence without pissing anyone off. Are you guys handwriting those? Or pulling from elsewhere & programmatically modifying them for use in the app?
@sphmrs we write the abstracts and we pick the stories with humans making $14 an hour.... almost everyone else uses social signals, a community (reddit) or keywords/algos (google) and some just slap an RSS on it. This makes us a little slower, but we have higher quality. we will see if it works!
@sphmrs I was actually delighted to find that our team really embraced writing irreverent, fun headlines. Seemed like it'd be a challenge to get more serious, journalism-oriented people to cut loose like that, but it was pretty easy. The hardest part is striking the right balance between being sort of cheeky but not offensive or obnoxious. Glad you're enjoying it!
@sphmrs I was delightfully surprised at how quickly our normally straight-laced writing staff started cranking out funny headlines. You wouldn't think being just the right amount of quippy would be that common a skill. As you suggest, the toughest part is striking a balance between being fun but not obnoxious or inappropriate. Glad you're enjoying it.
Also, consider this an AMA about news, product & startup life! Please do... ask me anything and give me a little feedback/love for my new little experiment.
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@jason Where's the launch ticker tab? That's all I care about haha
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@jason love it, I'm using CycleTab to cycle between your TL;DR extension and the PH extension. A quick feature request/idea too - marking stories as read and hiding them from view
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@jont@jason Same here. CycleTab help us to end this big dilemma! eheheh
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@jason I love inside on my phone. It's a great example of an app that's valuable just for the notifications. Question: How do you think about cooperation with competitors? I'm thinking about as a startup works on a really hard unsolved problem there's certainly things to be learned from others trying to solve the same problem. For you personally, how do you think about cooperation with others doing news, conferences, etc.?
@jfilcik@jason generally speaking, startups are so focused on doing one thing right in the product/market fit phase there is no time for partnerships. However, if you have product market fit, well, sure.... it's time to rock and roll and find partners.
Thanks @jason, you just ruined my productivity! Chrome extension is slick and way too effective. Would be nice if one of the top stories is automatically expanded on the top with the first few lines of the story. Makes it even more immersive when opening a new tab.
@woutervanlent The designs for a single top story is in the works. Glad you guys confirmed the idea, cause it was a bit of a debate at the Inside office. It's a go now!
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