Product Overview of Upday
Introduction
Upday is a news aggregation platform that resulted from a strategic partnership between Axel Springer, a German publishing giant, and Samsung Electronics. Launched in 2016, it was initially pre-installed on Samsung smartphones, particularly the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, and later expanded to other Samsung devices across 34 European countries.
Key Features and Functionality
Content Aggregation
Upday aggregates news content from over 1,200 sources, including prominent news publishers, blogs, and video content providers such as “The Economist,” “The Daily Telegraph,” “Le Figaro,” BILD, and “Spiegel”.
Human Curation and Algorithmic Personalization
The platform combines human editorial curation with intelligent machine learning algorithms. A team of about 50 journalists across eight major editorial hubs in Europe manually curate top news stories, ensuring that the content is fact-checked and free from misinformation. This human curation is complemented by algorithm-based services that tailor content to users’ individual interests, categorized into ‘Need to Know’ and ‘Want to Know’ sections.
User Interface and Navigation
Upday presents news in a user-friendly format using “cards” that summarize top news stories. When users click on these cards, they are directed to the original article on the publisher’s website, allowing publishers to monetize their content through their own websites. The platform also uses its own native browser to bypass ad-blockers.
Publisher Collaboration
Upday maintains a collaborative relationship with publishers, allowing them to pitch stories for inclusion in the Top News section. This collaboration ensures a diverse range of content and helps publishers reach a broader audience. The platform also supports regional news titles and national publications, making it accessible for various types of publishers to join.
Revenue Model
Upday generates revenue primarily through advertising, both direct and programmatic. While it does not share ad revenue with publishers, it drives significant traffic to publishers’ websites, with over 430 million visits generated for UK publishers in a nine-month period. Additionally, Upday has been experimenting with hosting native video content and operates a revenue-sharing model with a few select partners.
Push Notifications
One of the powerful features of Upday is its push notification system on Samsung smartphones. These notifications can significantly boost traffic for publishers, with more than 70% of the audience accessing the app through these notifications.
Future Development
As of late 2023, Axel Springer announced the closure of Upday in its current form to transition towards an AI-based news platform. This transformation aims to explore the opportunities that artificial intelligence presents for journalism and the news industry, with plans to revive the service in the summer of 2024.
In summary, Upday offers a unique blend of human-curated and algorithmically personalized news content, providing users with a tailored and engaging news experience while supporting publishers through increased traffic and audience reach. However, with the upcoming transition to an AI-based model, the platform is set to evolve further in its approach to news aggregation and delivery.