Waiting in
the wings
are new
operating
system
providers
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THE CHANNEL
|
TECHNOLOGY
56
|
ISSUE 2 2013
|
THE CHANNEL
e launched
our first
application
in our home
market, in
France, in
2008 so we
are just coming to five years old.
We develop and publish mobile
and tablet applications, working
with the leading platforms,
Googleʹs Android and Appleʹs iOS,
as well as Microsoft Windows 8.
People now consume news like
they consume music or video – they
pick and choose only what they
want. We developed our applications
to answer that demand. Our News
Republic app is all about bringing
trusted news content together from
a variety of different sources both
local and international. The unique
point is that via an innovative user
interface the end user can easily
filter through the mass of
information and track the topics he
or she is most interested in.
How do I get it?
You need to have a smartphone or
tablet running on any of the
preferred platforms at the moment
– iOS or Android ‐ or have a PC
running on Microsoft Windows 8
where you can download our
applications from the platform’s
app store. At present, we have five
apps ‐ News Republic is our
flagship app and the most general
news application, the others like
Appy Geek or Glam Life are more
focused on different niche vertical
markets such as tech, sports or
lifestyle.
News Republic gives you access to
between 10,000 and 15,000 articles a
day in English, French, German,
Italian and Spanish, and coming
soon in Chinese. Itʹs an experience
thatʹs tuned for each local market.
So if you are in the UK, News
Republic will give you content from
UK‐based content partners and also
international ones, with a strong
focus on UK news and issues.
Other local editions in France,
Spain, Germany, Italy and the US
work in the same way.
What we do behind that is that
we build relationships with
hundreds of content partners in
each market who each provide
complete news articles for ingesting
into our platform. A semantic
engine extracts key words from
each of the articles and gives the
user a very easy way to set up a
flow of news about the topics that
interest them. So whether they are
following a current news topic, a
favourite football team, a TV show
or a film star, they are then alerted
continuously to any news article
that features one of their key
words. Itʹs all about enabling users
to inform themselves about the
news that interests them.
What is the deal for your content
partners?
Today we have over 800 content
partners across many different
markets. They basically fall into
four groups. There are the
international press agencies and
international news channels – such
as Al Jazeera, RT, VOA, Euronews,
Deutsche Welle. Many of these
provide content in many languages,
for example AFP provides content
in five languages for us. So these
are really powerful partners for us
to provide a baseline of content.
And then in each market we have
what we call Tier 1 partners which
are brands that the average user
will recognise – for example TV or
radio stations, newspapers, major
magazines, etc.
We also source content from
online sites that provide exciting
content in their niche markets, such
as more tech or celebrity focused
news sites. We even include small
blogs that provide a good service or
updates on something that is very
specific ‐ if you are interested in
water polo, we probably have some
content to cover that!
We only work with fully
licensed content. We donʹt take
anybodyʹs content for free, and we
offer revenue to content partners in
return. We ask for full articles, not
The name was prominently displayed at MWC in Barcelona but
there are many users that still haven't discovered the free app
that's too good to be true: News Republic allows you to create
customised news channels that filter the mass of information
down to your topics of interest. We asked David Finch, VP
Business Development at mobile applications publisher
Mobiles Republic, how it all works
W
ONEAPP
ALLTHENEWS
