News24 Edge app wins global media award

At Tuesday’s WAN-IFRA’s World Digital Media Awards in Berlin, the News24 Edge app was named as the World Award Winner in the category Best News Mobile Services. The World Digital Media Awards recognise publishers who have adopted digital media and mobile strategies as part of their offering to meet the major changes in how people consume news and information today.  The Awards took place at the World Publishing Expo, Messe Berlin.

 WAN-IFRA stands for the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers and their recognition of News24 Edge as a “best in the world” puts South Africa onto the global stage.  As a finalist of the African Digital Media Awards (in the Best News Mobile Services category), News24 Edge competed against winners in the same category from the rest of the regions, including Middle East, Europe, North America, Latin America, South Asia and Asia to take home this prestigious global accolade.

“We are thrilled and honoured that News24 Edge has been recognised on a global stage. Personalisation has been talked about and tried for as long as digital publishing exists, but with disappointing results. Machine learning and artificial intelligence now makes it possible to deliver effectively on this promise. Our engineers and data scientists created an app that tracks user behaviour and recommends stories in the home stream based on each user’s consumption patterns,” says Andreij Horn, Head of 24.com.

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“We respect the fact that our readers are time starved and while our nationwide team of journalists produce reams and reams of solid, quality content, not all of it is of interest to every user. This app makes it easier for our users to find the stuff they want to read – saving them time,” adds Horn.

News24 Edge, a mobile app, delivers a personalised experience to each reader by allowing them to select interests. Through artificial intelligence and machine learning, the app serves the stories readers enjoy reading most. The more a user consumes, the better the app becomes at providing the most relevant stories to them.  The app was designed with an engaged and busy reader in mind and clear text and crisp images make the content easy to find and easy to read. The navigation ensures as few taps as possible to get a reader to their favourite story.