News is, by definition, what’s new. Except that definition is increasingly flexible: what’s new on the internet one day may only make it to TV news broadcasts the day afterwards, or even longer. And now, services like Twitter are frequently buzzing with breaking stories before even the biggest news websites manage to publish something.
Njuice is a new iPhone app that aims to keep news junkies constantly ahead of the curve. As its developers point out, many geeks get their news fix from aggregator sites like Digg, Reddit and Delicious, but these take time to sort through what’s hot: “Something you viewed on the web yesterday hit Digg’s front page today meaning these services were trailing behind.”
So how does Njuice help? “By using a very complex parser to scan the social web in real-time we can detect the memes long before anyone else does,” claims the blurb. That means scanning 20 million links on Twitter, Google Buzz and MySpace every day, with more sites to follow in the future – Facebook ‘Likes’ would be an obvious addition.
It’s an interesting idea, although the proof will be in the pudding – does it really get you news faster? Also, we wonder if the ubergeeks who’ll be initially most interested in Njuice are precisely the people who already have informal ways of ensuring they get all the hot stuff fastest. Still, its performance on the App Store will be worth following.
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