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News360, a news reader app which learns about its users' interests to personalise results, has introduced a series of editions for countries outside the US, including a UK version.
This development comes just days after fellow news reader app Flipboard announced it had purchased another player in the market, the previously CNN-owned Zite.
The new "international editions" on News360 – which is available as a mobile and desktop app – also include versions for Canada and Australia. According to the company, a fifth of the app's audience are not in the US. Chief executive Roman Karachinsky said the UK accounts for 5 per cent of News360's audience, placing it third in terms of the app's biggest geographical audiences.
"This might seem low, but considering News360 has been geared strictly towards US users until now, I think it's actually pretty impressive that there are that many people in the UK who are willing to put up with news about Obamacare and the Superbowl until the app learns their preferences and starts de-prioritising American-specific topics", he said.
As for the split of stories for each country, and then international content, Karachinsky said "it all depends on the combination of the current content landscape and the personal interests of the user".
"When there are important international stories breaking, and not much on the home front, you'll see more international content, and vice versa. Someone who is interested in politics will probably see a lot more national content than someone who reads about tech, where a lot of stories don't really have a geographical component.
"At the same time, News360 will look at your personal habits and try to adjust to that - everyone's preferences are going to be different."
And he added that developments to the current system may evolve over time. "I'm sure we'll see patterns that we haven't anticipated in how users are going to be using the new editions, so we'll be making tons of changes and adjustments in the next few weeks too."
For publishers located in the UK, Canada and Australia, he said they should expect to "start seeing more traffic driven to their sites from News360" as a result of the latest development.
"We're already driving 25 per cent of all newsreader traffic to US publishers, and I think we can expect similar results in local markets.
"We're also working on different ways of helping publishers leverage our personalisation algorithms to better understand their audiences and monetise their own content, and we look forward to partnering with publishers in the UK more closely."
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