App Review - Inshorts
While browsing through the Play Store, I found an app called Inshorts, which claims to condense most News articles into 60 word "shorts", that you can consume instead of reading the entire article. The app is somewhat India focused, although it also includes shorts of articles from the NYT,Huffington Post, and many other international news sources. It seems the shorts are human-made, and the content is in general, human curated.
The app has a fairly simple UI, consisting of 3 main sections. The first is the one that is shown in the photo above. It lets you go to the various categories, like the Top Stories, or Trending. It also has a list of topics, like Business, Travel and Science. There's also a search section, although it's still in beta.
The second section has the short, which is the main feature of the app. It's a (60 or less) word long condensed version of the article, typically with one or more images. You can swipe up/down to get to the next/previous short. You can of course, share a short, or like/bookmark it. If you swipe right from a short, you get to the original article that the short was made from.
This is screenshot of a short.
And this is a screenshot of an original article inside the app.
The app relies on Facebook ads for revenue. The articles at the bottom of the short are actually ads. I think that's the best advertising I've ever seen in an app. It's the definition of a "native ad" in the good sense(not the sponsorhip-without-disclosure sense). The UI melts in to the content seamlessly, and the ads are, nine times out of ten, interesting articles that you actually want to click and read. These are the best ads and monetization strategy I've ever seen on a phone. I know it sounds absurd to find the "best" ad, but they really are. It's pretty clear they put thought this when they were making the app, and that attention shows. These are ads that I actually want to click, because they have actual,real interesting content.
But the most important thing I was curious about, was how much they deviated from the article, and if their shorts had any biases. The developers say that shorts will only have the facts, and no opinions. At first, when I read this, I laughed at it. A company not acting according to its executives' political beliefs? Yeah that's never going to happen. But then I actually started reading shorts, and looking at the articles that made the short. And I have to say, the content is exceptionally good. It's incredible that in today's world, a small app with just a 100k downloads feels more refreshing, more interesting, and more objective than most big news channels. I guess when you have a 60 word limit, you can't add the garbage, you can't add the mindless speculation, you don't have space for the opinions being thrown around as facts. I have been, for the last few days, absolutely hooked to this app. And that's because of its singular focus of sticking to the facts. I love it. Shorts are raw, tender information. Just the real deal, nothing else. No clickbait,no useless images, no filler material, and definitely no sponsored content.
So in conclusion, Inshorts is a great app when it comes to design, UX, and the monetization. Honestly, it's one of the best apps I've ever seen, and it will save you an incredible amount of time over the long
term, without compromising on the important information.
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