bmusto19

We've created a slack channel to continue the discussion and receive feedback on our site. You can join here: https://join.slack.com/t/newspherecommunity/shared_invite/en...

For sure, our beta is pretty bare bones but we'll refine it over the next few months, especially after we get feedback from our planned beta launch at the end of the month

Could you explain this a bit more? I'm not sure I'm following how this would be implemented

It's great to know other people are also trying to tackle this problem! I agree, the titles of news stories are often to grab one's attention rather than convey the true contents of a story, and we're still trying to solve this problem. Perhaps some feature that visualizes the mood/ topic of a story based on the full text, but it's a difficult problem to solve. We're open to suggestions though!

We've updated the frontpage so that the video plays from youtube now, let us know if you guys keep running into issues watching it!

Thanks! Currently for our MVP just AP News, which we're getting from here: https://newsapi.org/. We're working on perfecting the site with one or two news sources first before expanding to more options. Definitely a good point about articles changing/ getting updated, something we'll be looking into how to address going forward.

Makes sense. Do you mean deep-dive topic pages on specific events such as the syrian civil war, for example?

User-configurable does sound like a good option, hopefully something we can integrate into the site soon

Great point, we'll have to work on that going forward. We've been using AP News as our main source for the moment as it is fairly neutral, but we're looking for ways to handle different sources going forward. We went with google but are open to other suggestions for future forms

We've been using https://newsapi.org/

Thanks, we think so as well :)

Thanks for the feedback! That's something we've been thinking of implementing, perhaps with a search feature as well. And we'll definitely try to reach out to Austen, especially with his success in the startup world. Are there any other people/ companies/ startups you'd suggest reaching out to for feedback? We've mainly talked to professors/ business leaders from Brandeis University and a few professionals in the news industry.

We are still working on our pricing model but right now we are looking at a doing freemium model. Free version would have some limitations (ex: a limited number of news sources that stories can be pulled from, so choosing 3 sources from list of options) but the average user would still get a ton out of the site. Premium version would be subscription based, giving users full range of features (ex: pulling from as many news sources as you wish). We would love feedback on any suggestions for pricing though, we'll be tinkering and tailoring it based on how the beta goes/ what changes we make to the site + idea

We're working on fixing the website video, in the meantime we have the video up on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpwgat54KXg&t=3s

Additionally we have a one page PDF summary here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-D7MmRph8mRC9MUL55Vh5hNy...

Thank you for the feedback! We're also really liking the timeline aspect of the stie, but we still think there's ways to incorporate at least some sort of graph model as well. This might be something we'd A/B test

We're working on fixing the video on our site, if you'd like you can watch it on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpwgat54KXg&t=3s

Our demo video is on the main page of our site and can be found on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpwgat54KXg&t=3s

Additionally you can check out our one page user guide PDF here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-D7MmRph8mRC9MUL55Vh5hNy...

The PDF also includes a link to a more in depth explanation of Newshpere

Good point, that's definitely a suggestion we'll incorporate into the site!

What browser were you using? We've mostly been testing the site on Chrome and Safari.

Thanks! Those logos were actually left behind from the website template we were using and have been removed.

Hi there! My friend and I are working on a website called The Newsphere and we’re looking for others who share our interest in understanding current events to help us beta test our platform. The Newsphere acts as a virtual map of world news, enabling users to see the news as the result of a complex web of relationships between people, places, organizations, and countries. You can watch our intro video on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpwgat54KXg&t=3s and signup for the beta here: https://newsphere.org or keep reading to learn more about the Newsphere.

Basically, our model analyzes thousands of news articles every day, and uses natural language processing to extract the different entities in them, as well as identifying relationships between them. Over time we construct narratives, which the user can see illustrated on a graphical timeline. The goal here is to give context to current events, enabling users to view recent developments in light of past patterns of behavior.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can email us directly at [email protected] and we’ll be happy to get back to you. Again, you can sign up for our beta here: https://newsphere.org

Thanks again!