As a small business owner I am constantly reading news sites and staying informed about the latest start-ups and business trends. All business owners need to know what’s happening in their networks. The way to make sure you cover all the hot topics is by using a few apps that take very different approaches to content curation and recommendation. Here are the best apps for content discovery based on how they source content.
- Nuzzel uses social curation to find content sourced by friends and people I know.
- Flipora uses artificial intelligence to find content sourced by algorithms and other like-minded users.
- Circa provides content sourced by professional editors.
This helps ensure you never miss out on cool and interesting content that’s put up daily!
1. Nuzzel.
Throughout my years in Silicon Valley, I’ve developed a vast network of colleagues and friends who want to share stories that are important to both their business and mine. My friends often share articles on Facebook and Twitter that they’ve written, or are about their company. It’s important that I know what’s happening in their world. Nuzzel is the perfect app for combining all those stories into one place so I can see what’s happening. It’s a clean, intuitive lay-out; a perfect social news aggregator.
Another great thing about Nuzzel is its attracted a lot of attention from major players in Silicon Valley such as Chris Sacca, Mark Cuban, Matt Cutts and Jay Adelson. The app was founded by Friendster founder and pioneer of social networking, Jonathan Abrams and is one of the best social news apps out there so you never miss out on content shared on your favorite social networks.
Related: How to Make Time for Social Media Marketing
2. Flipora.
Flipora’s iPhone app scours the entire Web for content based on your interests and the people you follow. This app is the Google of discovery.
Flipora automatically guesses my interests based on content I’ve shared on Facebook and Twitter and lets me add new interests anytime. The app is always refining it’s recommendations based on what I click on. It has become astonishingly accurate at predicting that content I’ll click on and want to share. You’re able to follow famous people, friends and see what others are reading, so there’s a fun social aspect that adds to the algorithmic aspect of the curation process.
Flipora is downright addictive. The startup, founded by Jonathan Siddharth and Vijay Krishnan from Stanford University, has raised nearly $4 million from the backers of Twitter, SpaceX, Skype and Paypal. Machine learning seems to be a big trend these days and it’s no surprise that’s it’s eating the content discovery space also.
Related: Keep Up on Social Media With These 5 Tools for Savvy Businesses
3. Circa.
When it comes to others doing the work for me, one app that I really like is is Circa, founded by CEO Matt Galligan with the goal of being “the President’s Daily Brief for the rest of us.”
This motto mandates the content be succinct, engaging and received in a timely manner. Everything is optimized for mobile. They’re aware that their audience is mostly on-the-go. In the latest version of the app, Circa has added a new feature called “Wire” which provides an overview of the day’s top stories curated by it’s editors and also includes updates to stories you chose to follow.
Following a story is a great way to keep up with a news story. You see the latest updates and developments as editors come across new information pertinent to the story. Besides Circa, I use Yahoo! News Digest when I want to see content sourced by professional news editors.
Using these content discovery and sharing tools, I’m able to keep myself and my friends, colleagues and audience informed, as well as share interesting content very quickly. I can often manage my content in under 30 minutes a day, find new content that’s relevant to me and my circle of influence. In a world that’s drowning in noise and information overload, it’s become all the more important to have good tools like these to discover that elusive needle in the haystack.
Related: 12 (Mostly Free) Web Tools for Entrepreneurs
