Should I Build It Should I Build It
20 Apr 2025
News Productivity

news app without bloatware simple and users can bookmark articles and ...

...see it in list

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.

Your are here

You're entering a crowded space with your news app idea. The 'Swamp' category, where your idea fits, suggests that many have tried and failed to create a truly loved news app. There are 21 similar products which means significant competition. The average engagement is low, so you really need to think about how to stand out and make people care to use your app. Your idea of a simple, bloatware-free news app with bookmarking is appealing on the surface, but you'll need to dig deeper to find a unique angle and give users a reason to switch from their current news sources. While there were no explicit net use or buy signals, this is to be expected since many products don't get much user feedback at all. Your goal is to find out what the popular ones do better, and avoid the mistakes and flaws of the less popular ones.

Recommendations

  1. Dive deep into understanding why existing simple news apps haven't become mainstream successes. Don't just look at their features; analyze their user acquisition strategies, monetization models, and the specific needs they tried to address. Look for patterns in user feedback to understand the recurring pain points with existing solutions, then you can offer a truly differentiated solution.
  2. Identify a niche audience that's currently underserved by mainstream news apps. This could be based on specific interests, geographic location, or demographic group. Tailor your app's content and features to meet the unique needs of this audience, and become the trusted source of news for them. For example, focus on a specific region, or topic.
  3. Instead of directly competing with established news providers, consider building tools or services that enhance their existing offerings. This could involve creating a platform for news aggregation, analysis, or personalization that can be integrated into other apps or websites. This could provide some sustainable differentiation.
  4. Before investing significant time and resources, explore adjacent problems related to news consumption that might be more promising. This could involve developing solutions for combating misinformation, promoting media literacy, or creating alternative news formats. The launch discussions for 'Vanilla News' highlight the desire for factual content and less opinionated reporting - perhaps you can focus on offering a truly neutral news source.
  5. Given the competitive landscape, prioritize building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with just the core features of your app: bloatware-free news, simple bookmarking and list views. Launch quickly and gather user feedback to iterate and improve. This will allow you to validate your assumptions and avoid wasting time on features that users don't want.
  6. Pay close attention to the user experience. The launch discussions for 'Dead Simple News' and other similar apps highlight the importance of ease of use and intuitive design. Make sure your app is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and provides a seamless reading experience. Don't force users to create an account before they can explore the app's content.
  7. Address the concerns of data privacy and ad policies that are common among users. Be transparent about how you collect and use user data, and avoid intrusive advertising practices. Instead, explore alternative monetization models such as subscriptions, donations, or affiliate marketing.
  8. Actively engage with your users and respond to their feedback. Create a community around your app where users can share their thoughts, suggestions, and concerns. The launch discussions for 'Pocket' highlight the importance of ongoing development and feature updates to keep users engaged.

Questions

  1. What specific problem with existing news apps are you trying to solve, and how does your solution provide a significantly better experience for users?
  2. How will you differentiate your app from the numerous other news apps in the market, and what unique value proposition will you offer to attract and retain users?
  3. Given the low engagement observed in similar product launches, how will you create a strong community around your app and encourage users to actively participate and provide feedback?

Your are here

You're entering a crowded space with your news app idea. The 'Swamp' category, where your idea fits, suggests that many have tried and failed to create a truly loved news app. There are 21 similar products which means significant competition. The average engagement is low, so you really need to think about how to stand out and make people care to use your app. Your idea of a simple, bloatware-free news app with bookmarking is appealing on the surface, but you'll need to dig deeper to find a unique angle and give users a reason to switch from their current news sources. While there were no explicit net use or buy signals, this is to be expected since many products don't get much user feedback at all. Your goal is to find out what the popular ones do better, and avoid the mistakes and flaws of the less popular ones.

Recommendations

  1. Dive deep into understanding why existing simple news apps haven't become mainstream successes. Don't just look at their features; analyze their user acquisition strategies, monetization models, and the specific needs they tried to address. Look for patterns in user feedback to understand the recurring pain points with existing solutions, then you can offer a truly differentiated solution.
  2. Identify a niche audience that's currently underserved by mainstream news apps. This could be based on specific interests, geographic location, or demographic group. Tailor your app's content and features to meet the unique needs of this audience, and become the trusted source of news for them. For example, focus on a specific region, or topic.
  3. Instead of directly competing with established news providers, consider building tools or services that enhance their existing offerings. This could involve creating a platform for news aggregation, analysis, or personalization that can be integrated into other apps or websites. This could provide some sustainable differentiation.
  4. Before investing significant time and resources, explore adjacent problems related to news consumption that might be more promising. This could involve developing solutions for combating misinformation, promoting media literacy, or creating alternative news formats. The launch discussions for 'Vanilla News' highlight the desire for factual content and less opinionated reporting - perhaps you can focus on offering a truly neutral news source.
  5. Given the competitive landscape, prioritize building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with just the core features of your app: bloatware-free news, simple bookmarking and list views. Launch quickly and gather user feedback to iterate and improve. This will allow you to validate your assumptions and avoid wasting time on features that users don't want.
  6. Pay close attention to the user experience. The launch discussions for 'Dead Simple News' and other similar apps highlight the importance of ease of use and intuitive design. Make sure your app is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and provides a seamless reading experience. Don't force users to create an account before they can explore the app's content.
  7. Address the concerns of data privacy and ad policies that are common among users. Be transparent about how you collect and use user data, and avoid intrusive advertising practices. Instead, explore alternative monetization models such as subscriptions, donations, or affiliate marketing.
  8. Actively engage with your users and respond to their feedback. Create a community around your app where users can share their thoughts, suggestions, and concerns. The launch discussions for 'Pocket' highlight the importance of ongoing development and feature updates to keep users engaged.

Questions

  1. What specific problem with existing news apps are you trying to solve, and how does your solution provide a significantly better experience for users?
  2. How will you differentiate your app from the numerous other news apps in the market, and what unique value proposition will you offer to attract and retain users?
  3. Given the low engagement observed in similar product launches, how will you create a strong community around your app and encourage users to actively participate and provide feedback?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 21
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 2
  • Net use signal: 13.1%
    • Positive use signal: 21.2%
    • Negative use signal: 8.1%
  • Net buy signal: -2.4%
    • Positive buy signal: 2.1%
    • Negative buy signal: 4.5%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

Similar products

Relevance

Dead Simple News - Life is complicated, your news shouldn't be

29 Sep 2023 News Productivity Tech

Let's face it, most news apps are a pain. They're packed with clickbait thumbnails and visual clutter that makes reading the headlines feel like a chore. We fixed that. Join 20,000+ subscribers and get the headlines sent to your inbox every morning.

The launch received positive feedback with users congratulating the team and expressing excitement about the product's concept. Users appreciated the minimalism and ease of use, with one suggesting it's simpler than Instagram. A suggestion was made to allow topic selection before email subscription.

Users criticized the product for requiring an email address before allowing users to select topics, contradicting the product description's promise of topic selection beforehand.

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News – Personalized Feed Reader for Android

26 Mar 2024 Android News

Hello everyone!Your News is a personalized RSS Feed reader that helps you only consume the news you want to see.Currently, Your News has the following functionalities:- Dedicated buttons to add YouTube and RSS feeds. - Search for RSS feeds using the feedsearch.dev API. - Categorizing RSS feeds. - OPML Import. - Mark as favorite/read later. - Keyword filters. - Dark Mode. - YouTube video player without ads.I want to add more features in the upcoming versions, like widgets and notifications. In the future, the application will also be available on iOS, the web, and desktop.I hope the application can help you stay up-to-date with your news. Have a good one!

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I built a better way to bookmark, read news, blog or any internet texts

05 Oct 2023 Writing Productivity

Users prefer browser-integrated bookmark managers over website-based ones. They appreciate the improved storing UI but note that accessing data could be better. There is interest in self-hosting options and a suggestion to turn the service into a Chrome extension. Additionally, users mention the lack of a screenshot on the homepage.

The product lacks browser integration and the ability to define keyboard shortcuts. Users question how it differentiates from existing products and note the absence of a screenshot on the homepage.

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Pocket 8.0 - Your own corner of the web to spend time with great articles

17 May 2023 Android News Audio

Stay on top of your interests, and curate your own space filled with only the topics you care about. Discover and save the latest stories, articles, news and videos from any device, and any publisher or app.

Pocket 8.0's launch on Product Hunt was met with positive feedback, particularly regarding the new Home tab and performance improvements. Users, including both new and long-time Pocket users, congratulated the team on the updates. Some users find the app helpful for filtering information. There were also requests for enhanced features such as a card view for saved articles and more customization options within sections.

Users criticize the slow development pace since Pocket 7.0, with concerns about the platform feeling outdated and buggy. There are requests for specific content integrations like 'Nature' magazine and Medium alternatives. Users also cite a need for improvements in the user interface, specifically mentioning the absence of a card view for saved articles and a general lack of customization options.

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News app based solely on RSS

20 Oct 2023 News

I'm an avid news reader. I even use feedly to aggregate content. But often I feel a bit overwhelmed by it. The endless scrolling feed. I wrote this news app for a select set of categories I'm interested in and find it to be quite useful. I saw the news about Google news today and thought, oh hey, really gotta double down on this thing.Feedback welcome! Cause I'm terrible at design...

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Simple Hacker News Reader iOS App

29 Apr 2023 News

I made a Simple Hacker News Reader iOS App. App is fully native and written in SwiftUI.Features include:- Access to top, best and new stories from Hacker News - Customizable themes to personalize your reading experience - Widgets to stay up-to-date with the latest news right from your home screen - User-friendly interface for easy navigation - Simple and fast loading of storiesMore features coming soon!

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Hacker News Reader App

22 May 2024 News

Hi everyone big HN fan here ... so big, that I always wanted a better UI on mobile (and desktop). So since none of the existing apps satisfied my taste, I setout to do the only reasonable thing: program an app myself.It's made in flutter + serverpod (so all Dart) and therefore comes in iOS, Android, Web (future Linux, Mac, Windows)Yes, it has all the boring parts: list feeds, read and comment articles, ...More exciting parts:- swipe list items for faster actions (fav, upvote)- customize feed (pure list, preview image, newspaper style)- Customize click actions (open URL, open comment)- highlight OP comments.- collapsable comment threads.The every exciting parts:- Offline reading / caching- Notifications about high-score/interesting/most-commented items.and- AI summary, summaries the article as a bulletinWanna try out the app (as PWA) before downloading ==> https://app.hn-reader.comAll other info here: https://www.hn-reader.comAnd yes, I'll be in the comments for questions

The comments on the Show HN submission include concerns about spammy behavior and suggestions to stop spamming. There are also recommendations to add the app to awesome-hacker-news and list it on HN. The developer plans to open source the app after cleaning up the code. Additionally, the app uses harmonic.

Users criticized the app for having flagged comments and an inappropriate footer. They also suggested that the HN website should list apps on the help page. Additionally, there were complaints about spamming.

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Yet Another Hacker News App

16 Aug 2024 News

Howdy everyone. Long time lurking around here. I always wanted to learn about mobile development, and decided to build something that I would actually use as everyone always suggests.As of right now, it's a simple Hacker News reader. The main feature is the ability to read the article/website together with the comments (none of the current HN apps have that, and I "stole" this idea from the Artifact app, which combined the news with comments ). I also wanted to keep the colors/theme in sync with the official HN.I did several small projects over the past few years, but after deploying them, that was it. I never used them.This one I've been using daily for the past month or so, and the number of bugs or things that were bothering me were incredibly high! It's been a good experience fixing and seeing it quickly with OTA updates.Working to fix all the spaghetti code and open-source it. I am also adding a couple more features.Android is ready but needs 20 testers. Let me know if you are interested. :D

Built HN reader app, needs Android testers.

Many bugs and issues initially.

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Daily News Aggregator

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Wanted to reduce my time scrolling through local & topical news by not having to flip through several social apps / websites on the phone with distracting UI.Currently localized to ON, Canada, ideal future to make it auto-adjust to user location and push down number of shown items.

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Vanilla News - The news, but without all the opinions

05 Jan 2023 Politics News Newsletters

The News is so divisive nowadays. This app takes news from the newspapers with the highest circulation (from across the political spectrum) and removes the opinions.

Users express positive feedback and congratulate the launch. The app is lauded for providing news without opinions, and the idea is well-received. Several users inquire about the article creation process, questioning whether it's manual or AI-driven. There's enthusiasm for the concept, a desire for factual content, and strong support for the project. One commenter specifically expresses a desire for 'more vanilla'.

The primary criticism is that the news content is excessively opinionated and lacks sufficient factual information. Users are requesting a more balanced approach that prioritizes objective reporting over subjective viewpoints.

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06 Oct 2024 Social Media

I've created an application that lets you read articles without ads + recommendation engine that picks 20 best articles for you to read everyday!

Users are concerned about ads, profiling, and data privacy. The privacy policy addresses these questions, mentioning ads and profiling.

Users criticized the product for having a contradictory ad policy and raised concerns about data privacy. They also mentioned issues with ads, profiling, promotional emails, and push notifications.

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View News App is a community-driven platform that verifies news in real-time using location, time, date stamps, and creator credentials. Restoring trust in media, fight misinformation, and offer diverse perspectives to empower local communities.

The general sentiment is positive towards the View News App, with one user expressing enthusiasm and seeing potential for its focus on local news. One comment was deleted.

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Be gentle & humble HN, we're just beginning this journey. We still have A LOT of work to do on Tidby. However, we'd love your insights on improving its growth.Current things we're improving: - Article / summary quality - Feed quality / improvements - Onboarding across app - Additional sources - UI/UX improvements (not final design)We've been diligently working on an app designed to summarize the news and create a social experience within it over time.The future of Tidby: ~ Comments on articles. ~ Posting. ~ Newsrooms. (similar to a subreddit) ~ Related Articles. ~ Library expansion. Create groups, subtopics, etc. ~ Mood Reading. Enjoy articles / topics at certain times of the day instead of random. ~ Filters, filters, filters, & much more planned.Not for who you or what you think will make Tidby great, but what would make Tidby useful for you?Thank you for reading!

Users are generally excited about the app, particularly for managing information overload. Some users appreciate its simplicity and elegance, comparing it to Hacker News. However, there are concerns about potential bias in app reviews. One user mentioned they will look into the app and provide a review.

The primary criticism is that the app review process is biased.

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Suffering from Infobesity? – Social Media and News Snippets

02 Apr 2024 Social Media News

Shortsnip creates one sentence snippets from news and social media. Also recaps of topically related snippets. Helps me spend less time online without app limiting or disconnecting completely.I built this because I wanted the meeting notes of what's happening online - right to the point so I can get off my device. Obviously no one can keep up with billions of updates everyday. News and social media becoming more fragmented only exacerbates this issue.Please tell me what you like, don't like, find confusing, or anything else at all. Would love your feedback!

Users have mixed reactions to AI-generated art in obituaries. One finds the AI pictures jarring, while another sees AI art as a potential solution to information overload.

Users criticized that the AI-generated pictures on obituaries are not actual photos of the deceased, which can be misleading and disrespectful.

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