Top 10 News Curation Apps in Japan

“Kyurēshon” in Japanese refers to the customization of news, which has become popular in Japan in part thanks to the rise of news curation apps on smartphones. The popularity of news curation is not just about getting the information you are interested in all in one place; more importantly, it’s about getting it quickly enough that you can glance at all the updates during your morning commute.

A survey conducted by PR Times last year asked 520 smartphone users between the ages 10 to 50 about their smartphone usage habits. From the survey, reading the news is the most popular activity, with 70% of the respondents answering that they use their smartphones for that.

Among the respondents who read the news on their smartphones, more than half read it during their morning commute or during lunch. Both of these are situations where users have limited time and require information to be concise and easy to digest. This leaves a great potential for news curation apps that supplement Japanese reading habits.

This article will introduce you to 10 of the top news curation apps in Japan right now.

1) Kamelio

Kamelio uses an algorithm to pick out articles users are likely to be interested in, going beyond the keywords they entered in their preferences. Users can pick from over 100,000 themes or topics (not just news, but also specific industries, entertainers, and other influencers) and receive notifications when there is breaking news relevant to your interests. Kamelio presents content in a concise way (just two lines) so it is easily skimmable, and users have the choice to read more if they choose to.

2) SmartNews

SmartNews shows the first paragraph of news stories before linking to the original source. There are around a dozen genres and interests users can choose from, including breaking news, politics, technology, entertainment and so on.

SmartNews makes its content available offline by allowing users to download the content onto their phones. This offline feature has led to complaints from content providers that SmartNews users do not click the links to the original stories, which decreases traffic on the site and reduces ad impressions.

However, SmartNews has had more than 3 million downloads since its launch and 75% of its users are active, so content providers would rather be included as a recommended news source on curation apps than excluded entirely (which is an option SmartNews offers as well). 

3) Newspicks

Newspicks focuses on economics and business news and allows you to create a personalized timeline of recommended content curated by industry experts and friends you follow. You can also follow “robots” that automatically gather news related to specific topics you are interested in.

Experts include successful entrepreneurs, university professors and journalists. Users can get news articles from publications such as Routers, Wall Street Journal, Toyo Economics, and Gizmodo.  Newspicks offers a free version of its app as well as a paid version where for $15/month, users can enjoy 8 newspaper and magazine publications in full.

4) hint!

The primary target of hint! is younger girls who are just starting to use the iPhone. It curates information on iPhone how-to’s, new and upcoming apps, as well as news and trends on topics such as beauty, food and travel. The content is simple and easy to read during short commutes.

5) Presso

Created by Japanese internet company Hatena, Presso is a news app based around Hatena’s bookmarking service. It allows users to follow a robust and customizable list of news categories, as well as bookmark articles as they read them.

6) Medy

Medy is a news curation app specifically for medical news, targeting people in the medical industry. The app curates information and news from 200 websites with relevant medical content. Medy allows you to access the content through the app without having to switch in and out to read the whole article.

7) Wadai-Now (話題なう）

Wadai-Now is a an app based on Yahoo! news. Users can pick their favorite topics and influencers they want to follow and customize their timeline the way they want. In addition, the app can send users alerts when a topic goes viral on the internet to help people keep track of trends.

8) Mynd

The name “Mynd” comes from “mind engine.” What sets this app apart from the rest is that it doesn’t curate news based on what you say your interests are, but rather, like machine learning for news, it analyzes the way you use the internet and delivers appropriate content to you every morning based on what it learns.

9) Vingow

On Vingow, there are 50,000 keywords users can choose to follow based on their interests. The app itself is efficient and enables users to find information and read articles they are interested more efficiently. Also, like Mynd, Vingow learns what the user likes and makes more customized recommendations based on data on their reading habits and usage.

10) Gunosy

Gunosy is “widely seen as SmartNews’ main rival.” The app also uses user data in order to generate recommended news stories–and for this, it’s social media habits. Gunosy has been downloaded 1.8 million times as of March 2014. Users can glance at the general news topics of the day quickly–within minutes–and the design of the app is very simple and easy to use.

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