In a very successful effort to blend news with social media, on September 22, 2011 The Washington Post released a revolutionary Facebook application that has social media enthusiasts buzzing.

Social media is centered around sharing information and communicating with others about various topics of interest (cars, cooking, politics, etc.). Typically articles are discovered on news websites like The Washington Post, then shared on social channels, which requires the fun act of copying/pasting or clicking share buttons that seem to never work properly. Fortunately, the times are changing.

The Washington Post is focused on removing the manual aspect of sharing on social websites, namely Facebook, to make the flow of information more streamlined. In an official announcement on WashingtonPost.com, the news giant stated:

We combined Facebook’s new “Read” edge with technology from Trove, our personalized news aggregation service, to create an app that chooses full-text content from multiple sources based on your past activity and your friends’ activity, once you have opted in to use the app. Based on your reading habits, the Social Reader will provide a personalized news site experience created just for you in the app. All you have to do is read, just as you normally do. No “recommending,” “liking” or “sharing” — just read and we’ll do the rest of the work. The app gets better the more friends you have using it.

All in all, I must say that I’m impressed with the decision to create such a forward-thinking app, and I’m excited to see what else The Washington Post has up their sleeve.

Aaron Schoenberger
The Brainchild Group