Founded in October 2010, San Diego company, Flud, created a new kind of social news reader. Their goal is to create platforms that that allow discovering, consuming and sharing news, and that’s exactly what they have done.
The way it works is you open Flud every day to interact with news content in the easy-to-use interface and you can become a news personality by endorsing content for other people who use the mobile Flud application. It was named Best UI Design of 2010 in mobile applications, by Fast Company.
Flud is billed as an “information ecosystem” where the audience is empowered to influence the news.The next generation of Flud’s award-winning mobile application brings a social element to its enticing platform for news consumption. “Fluders” can recommend content to their community, discover new information and sources from friends, follow trends, and create their own informative front page.
The company says the most recent update makes Flud an irresistible environment for reading, viewing and sharing news and information. It takes them well on their way to the next phase of their mission, which is to build a total content ecosystem.
When using the lastest release, Flud 2.0 you can still control the content you follow, but now you can become a news personality, by building multiple information networks around your key interests. Flud 2.0 runs on iOS devices now, and is soon to be released on Android and Windows Phones.
“We know our Flud community loves the content they access inside our platform. Now they can also enjoy building an audience of their own. We think the future of news has a lot to do with filtering out the noise. That means getting news from people and sources you trust.”
- Bobby Ghoshal, Flud CEO, co-founder
Flud v 2 allows synching between devices and easier access to premium content sources. Flud media partners benefit not only from the community’s deeper relationship with their content, but also expand their brand presence and loyalty.
Here are the New Social Capabilities
With Flud 2.0, users will enjoy:
Serendipitous News Discovery
Flud has always allowed users to select the news and information sources they want to follow. Now, with the creation of social accounts, content can be discovered through personal connections. News also now can be shared inside Flud to an audience based around topics or interests. Fluders can create news personalities by curating the content they find from many different sources.
Interaction With News
Convenient controls for sorting and organizing news sources let users read news quickly and efficiently. Articles can be gathered into a “Reading List” to create their own front page to read at leisure. The “Flud” button pushes stories to a person’s community inside Flud, a place where news matters. “Share” buttons effortlessly push content to social networks.
Personal News Networks
Fluders will develop a community around news. A particular area of interest is brought to life when one user curates the best of many sources; as well, many users can interact over content from one source.
Funding for the privately held San Diego company came from Detroit Venture Partners and Ludlow Ventures. Based in San Diego, there is also an office in downtown Detroit.
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