PALO ALTO, CALIF.—Tribune has launched Newsbeat, a mobile news app that provides audio streaming of roughly 7,000 stories each day from hundreds of newspapers and websites. Using a blend of human voice-overs and text-to-speech technology, Newsbeat delivers personalized newscasts. Newsbeat is a free app available for download on iOS and Android devices.
The app takes some initial input from the user for customization, then starts predictive analysis. The library includes “hundreds of licensed news sources in the U.S.,” as well as Trib papers, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and The Baltimore Sun.
Newsbeat will be supported by audio advertising inserted throughout the news segments. Newsbeat offers advertisers a platform to reach a specific audience at a specific time. Tribune said it will “leverage its expertise in print and broadcast advertising sales to build a robust portfolio of national and local advertisers.”
