Making better sense of your news with Worldview Exchange
Here at Worldview Exchange we’re excited to launch our first product, a Google Chrome browser extension called ABC Tweets.
In an increasingly conflicted and confusing media landscape the team at Worldview Exchange are building a platform to enable consumers to make better sense of the news, and themselves.
Worldview Exchange came from the insight that, despite a real increase in choice of news media online, we are only getting fed content we’re likely to agree with. Also, that social media platforms were failing to provide people the space to start meaningful conversations about their views, values and beliefs without being abused.
The other insight driving our design is a growing awareness that the way we currently consume content is leading to negative mental health outcomes.
Mark Zuckerberg in his testimony to the US Senate emphasised Facebook’s own research that found passive consumption of content, just scrolling down a feed, was making people unhappy.
On the flip side modern psychotherapy and ancient philosophy both work from the basis that an improved understanding of our values and beliefs provides us a better guide for our actions, a clearer lens through which to interpret the world around us, a greater sense of control over our lives, and a stronger sense identity. These are all key determinants of wellbeing and happiness.
Our mission then at Worldview Exchange is empowering people to engage actively at a deeper level with the ideas, values, and beliefs they find in the news, and create the same safe space for discussion and debate online as they would around their own kitchen table.
About ABC Tweets
Our first product, ABC Tweets, is an important first step in delivering on this mission.
The browser extension designed for Chrome enables its users to hand select the most interesting or persuasive text from within a story to share direct to Twitter as an eye catching image.
Images are well known for creating additional impressions and engagement on Twitter. ABC Tweets builds on this by enabling the reader to post not just a link to the article but to capture, comment on and share with their audience the ideas within the piece they find most valuable.
It’s the time and thought that goes into selecting and sharing a particular sentence or statement that creates interest for the audience, not just because it’s packaged up into a neat looking image.
Applying artificial intelligence
ABC Tweets includes another feature that uses artificial intelligence to highlight the subjectivity of each sentence within a news article.
Subjective statements tend to be where the author, or someone being quoted, is going out on a limb, making a proposition or conveying a sentiment or feeling or belief, and not making a simple statement of fact.
By sorting opinion from fact ABC Tweets enables any reader to more easily find and engage with the ideas that are most contentious and debatable, aiding understanding and provoking critical thinking.
What’s next for Worldview Exchange
Building is already well underway on the next set of tools for Worldview Exchange users.
We’re expanding the actions users can take with the text they hand select. This includes being able to make personal notes and starting small group conversations. We’re also implementing some basic self-tracking, allowing our users to look back on what they’ve read and how their news consumption compares with other users.
At Worldview Exchange we hope from little things big things will grow.
As eyeballs and revenue have been lost to social media, we feel online news publishers are only now starting think further outside the box in attempting to wrest back their audiences.
Embedding novel post-reading actions within news articles creates additional value for the reader, leads to greater time on page, and ultimately revenue for publishers. We reckon it’s an important area for further innovation.
With ABC Tweets we’re initially focused on delivering a simple feature on a single publishing platform. We are however planning on making our tools and user profiles portable between all publishers.
ABC Tweets can be downloaded from the Google Chrome Store here.
