7 News-Themed Facebook Apps To Try Out

Yesterday, Facebook revealed the names of 12 media companies launching social reader apps on Timeline. Seven of them are news-themed. The Guardian and the Washington Post were two of the biggest names to first experiment with social readers. So far, almost 6 million people have signed up for and installed The Guardian's news app, says Martin Belam, the news organization's lead user experience and information architect. More than 5o percent of users are under the age of 24. "The app is putting our reporting and features in front of the grown-up audience of the future," Belam recently blogged. Justin Osofsky, Facebook's director of media partnerships, concurs that the apps have, so far, shown "significant increases in traffic and engagement." "These apps create new ways for readers to discover content, while giving publishers the opportunity to reach new audiences," Osofsky wrote in a blog post announcing the newest additions to Timeline. "They're built around news and content people care about and identify with and provide easy ways to control the social experience." So, who are the new news apps on the block? Just a note: Some of the media outlets wrote articles about their news app while others let readers find out by themselves. Huffington Post The HuffPo says its app " will take the reading experience to the next level." Once the readers agree to use the app, a nifty slideshow pops up to explain the process. Mashable Mashable's news app, with its own spiffy landing page, claims "the way you read the news just got a lot simpler." The site also emphasizes that the reader has complete control over what is being shared on Facebook. Buzzfeed It doesn't take much to download Buzzfeed's app. In some ways, its simplicity, and lack of any announcement that it now has an app, makes it a bit confusing to realize you're actually using the app. MSNBC.com and TODAY Show Owned by the same parent company, both MSNBC.com and TODAY.com launched social apps. In case you are confused about how to use them, the sites released this pretty useful explainer. MTV News MTV News didn't make any fanfare about getting a Facebook Timeline app and instead lets the reader figure it out. CBS Local: Los Angeles and New York CBS' LA and NY sites were the only local news sites to make it into this round of social apps. A button at the end of each article will let you share the story on your Timeline. Which social app are you definitely going to use? What others would you like to see rolled out?

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7 News-Themed Facebook Apps To Try Out

Elana Zak

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Elana Zak