News.me is a social news-reading service that brings new audiences to publishers' most interesting content and provides participating sites with licensing revenue based on the popularity of their content.
The service has two components:
- A free email service. Each day, News.me email subscribers receive an email digest with stories and websites that they're likely to find interesting (selected from links flowing through their Twitter streams). These links go to publishers' web sites (not to News.me), building traffic for those sites.
- An iPad application. In the application, users see a filtered stream of stories News.me thinks they will find interesting. They can also see what other News.me users are reading, thereby getting a variety of perspectives on the news.
News.me users can read stories in a web view (which presents the articles as they appear in other web browsers) or a streamlined reading view, where the browser displays only text and selected images. They can also switch back and forth between these two browser modes as they use the product.
Because News.me generally provides a small subset of a publisher's content, filtered by user actions and News.me algorithms, it is not a substitute for publishers' own web sites or iPad applications. And, since it exposes users to content they likely wouldn't otherwise see, it can broaden the audience and, through related-content links, drive new unique users to publisher web sites.
Content that is most popular among bitly and Twitter users is more likely to appear in News.me. For that reason, publishers who use bitly to share their content on Twitter and Facebook will generally receive more web visits from News.me email and app subscribers.
If you're interested in licensing your content or have questions about News.me's relationships with publishers, email licensing@news.me for more information.