Boston-based startup Pinyadda is changing the game of news distribution. Pinyadda is a personalized social news platform that provides the easiest way to follow the news from the people, sites and topics you are interested in. By sharing, or as the company calls it, “Pinning” interesting articles and engaging in conversations, users can earn points to become a “Maven” of a topic or an “Ambassador” of a favorite site.
Simply put, Pinyadda has made the news in to a legitimate game that helps users find topic experts and build community for publishers around their top supporters, while providing users the most engaging way to follow the news.
“With Pinyadda, we’re trying to address what we see as one of the biggest problems facing society, and that is providing an efficient way for consumers to receive and engage around quality news. We’re developing an innovative distribution model that will help publishers monetize their content, which is something we think everyone cares about today,” said CEO Chase Garbarino earlier this week. “The game has changed and now users are essentially digital paperboys — users are the distribution mechanism.”
According to Garbarino and the “Pinyadda squad,” no one has successfully built a next generation news platform to accommodate both the evolving consumption habits of users and the publishers’ need for a way to capture more value from readers. “The news has always been social.” explains Garbarino, “People used to exchange the news across many different platforms, be it Email, chat, etc. This made discovery and management laborious for consumers, and is almost impossible for publishers to track and extract value from.”
Pinyadda's HubSpot Badges
The company plans on changing all of that. Today, Pinyadda is releasing a system akin to that of Foursquare in an effort to help users find the most relevant Mavens of topics and Ambassadors of sites on its platform, thereby building a news graph of sorts that will help ensure consumers get the best content available. The company hopes this will ultimately lead to an effective way for publishers to capture value in their audiences. To kick things off, and staying true to supporting their Boston startup roots, they’ve partnered with some big names in the local startup community free of charge to deliver engaging badges around relevant content.
