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New Ryerson news app launched

By Laura Woodward

A recently released app, Headlines, will collaborate multiple Ryerson news sources to create a Ryerson based news feed.

The app uses the Toronto Star, The Eyeopener, The Ryersonian, Ryerson Rams and Ryerson Today headlines pushed on Facebook.  The app consists of headlines that users swipe through, but can get the full story by clicking on it.

Ryerson is the 68th Canadian school to get on board with the Headline app.

The Ryerson Headline app launched on Jan. 4 by Kreate, a team of four recent graduates based out of Montreal that all worked either in student government, associations or student newspapers.

“We found that there was a need for a better way for students to get information and a better way for associations to present that information,” Jack Han, marketing director for Kreate, said.

“Instead of logging onto Facebook [to get news information], where users might get distracted, they can go to an app that is specifically designed to get them informed and it’s the same content on Facebook.”

Last year, Han was the social media manager for the Montreal Canadians. He found that even though the Montreal Canadians Facebook page have over 1 million likes, only a tenth of their content was viewed.

“Essentially what Facebook is doing is getting brands and publishers to pay to push their content, which prevents [organizations] to get the reach they should be having,” Han said. “This is a problem for student associations because their small and also they can’t afford to pay to promote their content.”

Kreate is currently using grants that “encourage innovation and technological development” from the Canadian government to fund the android and IOS app development.

But Kreate plans to reach out for public funding in the future because according to Han, “this is a platform that can develop into a public service.”

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