Summary of Particle: Understand more, faster

  • particlenews.medium.com
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    Introducing Particle: An AI-Powered News App

    Marcel Molina and Sara Beykpour, former Twitter engineers, have created Particle, an AI-driven news app that aims to revolutionize how you consume and understand the news. Leveraging the latest advancements in generative AI, Particle offers a personalized and efficient way to stay informed.

    • Particle allows you to browse news stories tailored to your interests, providing quick summaries or in-depth perspectives.
    • The app uses AI to curate and summarize news from multiple sources, ensuring you get a comprehensive understanding of evolving stories.
    • Particle aims to address common frustrations with traditional news consumption, such as finding diverse perspectives, getting fresh updates, and avoiding paywalls.

    Addressing Common News Consumption Challenges

    Through a signup survey, Particle identified several pain points that users face when trying to keep up with the news:

    • The desire for diverse perspectives, often requiring reading multiple sources.
    • The need for aggregation, summarization, freshness, and de-duplication of news stories.
    • The preference for news to come to the user rather than actively searching for it.
    • Difficulty in getting quality, incremental updates on evolving situations.
    • The constant barrage of paywalls and ads when trying to get the gist of a story.

    Particle's Approach to News Consumption

    Particle aims to address these challenges by creating a seamless news experience using AI and personalization:

    • Users can browse a personalized list of news stories to quickly get up-to-speed.
    • The app allows users to dive deeper into various perspectives, broader context, and how a story has unfolded over time.
    • Particle integrates with news publishers and authors to ensure fair compensation while amplifying their work.

    The Particle Team and Funding

    The Particle team consists of experienced professionals from companies like Twitter, Google, Square, Lyft, Periscope, and Tesla. They have a collective expertise in building consumer products at the intersection of news and social media.

    • Sara Beykpour, the co-founder and CEO, spent over a decade at Twitter as an engineer and product leader, shipping products like Vine, Periscope, and Twitter Blue.
    • Marcel Molina, the co-founder and CTO, was an early engineer at Twitter and worked on various foundational features and systems.
    • The team of nine is based primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area, with members across the USA and Canada.
    • Particle has raised a $4.4 million seed round led by Kindred Ventures, Adverb Ventures, and Ev Williams (co-founder of Twitter), with support from angel investors.

    Reimagining News Through AI and Journalism

    Particle's vision is to redefine how we consume news by harnessing the power of AI while ensuring fair compensation for publishers and authors. The team aims to create an incredible product experience that amplifies great journalism and connects people with the stories they care about.

    • Particle wants to evolve how news and journalism are presented and consumed, adapting to emerging digital media formats.
    • The app will leverage AI to enhance the work of publishers, authors, and readers through summarization, context, and personalization.
    • Particle is currently in private beta, and interested users can sign up for the waitlist.

    Join the Particle Team

    Particle is hiring passionate individuals who love building products that make an impact. If you're interested in joining the team, you can contact them at jobs@minalabs.io.

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