News360 has just updated their app for iPad and Android to tap into your Facebook, Twitter, Evernote and Google account to figure out the kind of stuff you’re interested, and serve up relevant content. They’re calling the system “reverse search”, in that the right content finds you, rather than the other way around. Neat idea, and even if it gets things wrong, you can manually dive into the tastes that have been associated with you and manually tweak them. There’s also a new web-based version of News360 if you ever want to read your stories on a bigger screen.
Previously, News360 was just a nicely-made news browser with well-curated categories. Excerpts of stories were accessible within normal browsing, and if you wanted to dive into the full text, the native web browser was embedded within the app, so you could easily back out and keep perusing. The key thing about News360 is that it provides multiple sources covering the same story, so you can get a wide perspective on what’s happening.
I first heard of News360 after trying out their PlayBook app, and am happy to hear they’re working on rolling out these new features to the BlackBerry tablet as well as their various smartphone versions. Although it’s a little spooky that they’re burrowing into my habits to try to predict what I like, it’s nothing Google isn’t doing anyway, and if it enables me to discover cool stuff that I wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to, by all means, mine my personal data. If you’re interested in giving it a shot, the download is free in the Android Market, or at the iOS App Store link below.