
Ask HN: What are some niche or alternative news aggregators worth checking out? - crocodiletears
I know this question has been asked before, in one form or the next. But I&#x27;d like to make a push to expand my media diet. Are there any domain specific aggregators you use, or are there any promising new plays in the news aggregation space?
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joeyrideout
Newsmap is my go-to: [https://newsmap-js.herokuapp.com/](https://newsmap-
js.herokuapp.com/)

It's a real-time graphical representation of the most popular news stories in
a variety of topics in global or (configurable) regions. Very useful.

Shoutout to the original newsmap.jp which unfortunately requires Flash.

~~~
realshowbiz
Bookmarked this. Found that it displayed several stories I had not seen, at a
glance. Will try adding it to my phone scroll-hole rotation.

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a1z26
what is scroll-hole rotation?

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smacktoward
The Memeorandum family of products have been the foundation of my media diet
for more than a decade now:

Memeorandum (general news):
[https://www.memeorandum.com/](https://www.memeorandum.com/)

Techmeme (tech news): [https://www.techmeme.com/](https://www.techmeme.com/)

Mediagazer (media sector news):
[https://www.mediagazer.com/](https://www.mediagazer.com/)

I’m constantly amazed at how many people have never heard of them. To me, they
are indispensable.

~~~
mgreg
I'd second Techmeme for tech news aggregation; great site and now with a
newsletter too.

I actually built a general news aggregation newsletter inspired by Techmeme
too ([http://enclude.com](http://enclude.com)) which uses ML to group the
leading stories of the day together with the highest quality ones highlighted.
My hope was to break people out of their filter bubble by exposing them to
high quality coverage on the news of the day.

Did it as a daily email because I wanted it to be pushed to me and I wanted it
to be limited meaning once you read it you're done. No need to suck up more
time.

I've had no time to work on it and its in a state of disrepair but if anyone
is interested in teaming up on it let me know.

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t_mann
This looks great! Have you considered adding an RSS feed for it?

~~~
mgreg
No, it designed for email so there's not a public web site for the news itself
but it wouldn't be too difficult to make. As I mentioned, however, this is a
moribund service :)

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henryboldi
Hey! So I’ve been working on a news app, that like the others curates to your
interests, but instead of emojis uses adjectives which are based on criteria.
The idea is to filter out sensationalism engendered by the emoticon (and
frankly addictive) rating system. Gem tends to recommend articles from the
likes of NYT, The Atlantic, Nature, and Nautilus. Please check it out, and let
me know your thoughts: [https://exploregem.com](https://exploregem.com)

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martin_a
I set up my own FreshRSS instance and am adding more and more feeds to it. I
found that suitable to give me a broad overview over news etc. But you will
have to look for sources on your own, that's maybe a problem. Also less and
less sites are using RSS/Atom.

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ggttuu
One option might be to use an ebook reader called 'Calibre' which also has a
news aggregator built-in having over 1600 news sources from around the world.

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rcarmo
I used to use Calibre and get fresh news on my Kindle every morning, back when
there was no decent coverage in the subways...

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rdlecler1
We run AgFunderNews an set up feedit, a HN style channel covering external
news on foodtech & agtech

[https://feedit.agfunder.com/](https://feedit.agfunder.com/)

~~~
fludlight
This is cool but the color theme closely resembles one used by a popular ad
network, so the whole site looks like ad-spam.

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sterban
I built [https://statesreport.com](https://statesreport.com) as an ad-free
news aggregator. Let me know what you think!

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sonicrocketman
I run Pine.blog, a niche feed reader and blogging app and I’d love for it to
get more attention:

[https://pine.blog](https://pine.blog)

It’s got more of a Twitter-like feel (timelines instead of folders) and a
human curated directory of blogs and feeds to follow. If you’ve ever used
Tweetbot, that’s what I’m going for.

Its available on the web or on iOS. And there’s a premium tier if you want
more advanced features (and unlimited access to the API).

A major release is in the works that will add the ability to start a blog from
Pine.blog so that you can quickly and easily contribute back to the open web
on your own site. Right now you can post to a Wordpress blog if you have one.

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jyu
I don't know any better way than using an RSS feed and adding unknowing
curators for the domains of interest. Then you add and remove curators as you
see fit. Journalists, commenters, niche forums, twitter, bloggers can all be
added with some one time modifications.

If you like one curator's thoughts on subject X, they might introduce you to
interesting thoughts on subject Y or Z.

Another interesting trick I haven't heard other people using is to send the
media firehose to a folder, then only checking news that is 4+ weeks old.
Aging the stories allows you to sift through puff pieces vs ones that have
staying power and remain important.

~~~
slenk
What's the best way to find new curators? I am sure there are great
journalists on twitter, but I wouldn't know where to begin

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t_mann
Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but I've found personalized start
pages (eg [https://start.me/](https://start.me/)
[https://www.protopage.com/](https://www.protopage.com/) ) with RSS and other
feeds from a wide variety of news sources to be the best fit for my purpose.
This includes a feed for HN and other aggregators.

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armatav
[https://www.notdepressing.com](https://www.notdepressing.com)

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guybedo
I built [https://aktu.io](https://aktu.io), it's a rss reader with machine
learning and news aggregation.

Main features are: \- items in your rss feeds are automatically categorized,
names of people, places, etc... extracted. That means it's way easier to
browse/filter your feeds when you have thousands of articles waiting to be
read...

\- items in your rss feeds are grouped together if about the same story. It
really helps to reduce the noise in your feeds as you don't have duplicates
any more, and at the same time it's convenient to have different sources/point
of views for articles in your feeds.

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thekyle
I've been running Hoxly News for a little while. It's a news aggregator that
provides a small crowdsourced summary for each story.

[https://news.hoxly.com](https://news.hoxly.com)

~~~
justhw
Nice site. Did you build it using opensource software or custom? I'm looking
to run similar site for a different niche.

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CapacitorSet
Italian users might be interested in [https://gambe.ro](https://gambe.ro), a
news aggregator to discuss the technical and social aspects of technology.
Likewise, [https://www.journalduhacker.net/](https://www.journalduhacker.net/)
for French users.

Disclaimer: I'm a co-founder of gambe.ro.

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tdevito
I built a news app: [https://gopulse.io/](https://gopulse.io/)

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bradezone
I also made a newsmap.jp clone:
[https://news.brade.zone/](https://news.brade.zone/)

Used to be a bit better when google news told you how many articles existed
per story (leading to more meaningful size differences), but it still gets the
job done I guess.

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newswriter99
I stand by SPIDR.

Found it via 4chan. Comments section get get a bit /pol/ but I think it adds a
refreshing reminder of what the internet used to be like before we started
posting our names and mugshots. [http://spidr.today/](http://spidr.today/)

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amerf1
Hey I'm the cofounder of EnergyAnts. Its a news aggregator for the Energy
industry. We launched during this batch's startup school. Looking forward to
some feedback!

Check it out [https://www.energyants.com](https://www.energyants.com)

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VygmraMGVl
Are you only focused on hydrocarbons? Or does that just dominate the Energy
Industry as a whole? I visited your site and the front page was entirely Oil /
Natural Gas

~~~
amerf1
We’re focused on energy in general, but so far the users have been posting
about hydrocarbons as that’s trending now considering where the oil price is
now and where it’s headed. What did you think of the website

Let me know if you want me to send you an invite (email in my bio)

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r56
I made [https://masskomm.com](https://masskomm.com). It's a simple news
aggregator for some of the main publishers I follow especially from around
Asia.

~~~
aldoushuxley001
Nice work, I like the design too.

~~~
r56
Thanks :)

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scrollaway
I highly recommend Tildes. It's a small, tight-knit community, pretty well
moderated. It's currently my favourite news aggregator.

[https://tildes.net/](https://tildes.net/)

Email me if you want an invite.

~~~
aldoushuxley001
The first thread I opened up had a full discussion on how people on the right
are either literally nazis or atleast effectively nazis... might be a bit too
much of a small, tight-knit community for me.

Not bad looking UI though

~~~
scrollaway
I'm @Adys in that thread arguing against that FWIW, and the votes are
essentially even. I find that there's very few "empty" discussions, and it's
always possible to actually talk to people. But yeah, fair warning, this is a
pretty strongly left-leaning site, and you'll have people with pretty strong
opinions about it.

Tildes is also a wonderful community outside of political topics. But if
you're looking for _news_ aggregators specifically, most news will likely be
political in some form, and have people arguing over politics in its comments.
Hell, look at HN.

I agree on the UI btw. There's a few themes you can try as well. It's
simplistic but practical.

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dhruvkar
[https://spane.org](https://spane.org)

for social entrepreneur news

~~~
djstein
hug of death?

~~~
dhruvkar
it's on a tiny server, looks to be back up.

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bg4
I've been enjoying reading KnowhereNews.com which attempts to provide bias-
free news.

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abstractbarista
drudgereport.com

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rambojazz
This question has been asked thousands of times. I suggest to build your own
RSS feed, but other than this I read Hacker News,
[https://freepo.st](https://freepo.st) and sometimes
[https://lobste.rs](https://lobste.rs).

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boramalper
[http://lobste.rs](http://lobste.rs)

Though it’s not unlike HN so not sure how worthy it is if you are already
here.

~~~
solarkraft
I like the articles, but would like to be able to contribute.

Do you happen to be willing to share an invitation?

~~~
boramalper
I’m not a member either, just lurking.

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justinlilly
barnacl.es is HN for bootstrappers, iirc.

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alt_f4
alltop.com

