Information aggregator app SmartNews had a troublesome 2023, starting with widespread layoffs in January and wrapping up with a management change that noticed co-founder Kaisei Hamamoto assume the function of CEO after the abrupt departure of former CEO Ken Suzuki final month. Extra alarming, because the panorama continues to shift dramatically, and generally unpredictably, for the information trade, the startup’s app is tanking when it comes to each downloads and lively customers, in keeping with current figures from app intelligence suppliers, Sensor Tower and Appfigures.
Based in 2012 in Japan, the corporate arrived within the U.S. in 2014 and expanded its native information footprint in early 2020 to cowl hundreds of U.S. cities.
At a time when large cell platforms like Apple and Google had been each squaring as much as present their very own digital newsstands for his or her cell and pill customers; and social media platforms had been making large performs to turn into information suppliers themselves to tackle a number of the promoting and visitors that historically was the area of publishers, SmartNews entered the fray with its personal tackle the medium: it might supply information by partnering with publishers; construct algorithms geared toward tailoring extra personalised feeds for customers; ship the information in a zippy, AMP-style streamlined format; and promote promoting in opposition to its visitors to generate income.
The formulation paid off with plenty of buzz. It grew to become the primary information startup to attain a billion-dollar valuation since 2015, as Bloomberg reported in 2019, after which in 2021 — a high-water mark for tech funding, in addition to for shoppers relying greater than ever on on-line channels for information, leisure, shoppng, work and extra — its valuation shot as much as $2 billion.
However it was to not final: the information app’s numbers have been falling over the previous yr.
The tides have shifted dramatically for information. Among the most essential channels for information visitors — Google Search, social platforms like Fb — modified how they give attention to and floor information hyperlinks, and that’s had an general hit on visitors and advert gross sales. And shopper tastes have modified, too, and it seems that the app can also be struggling to draw and retain customers.
Over a yr in the past, the corporate reportedly had 10 million month-to-month lively customers within the U.S., because it started constructing out an adverts gross sales workforce below the management of a former Google exec.
However per estimates from Appfigures, SmartNews’ day by day downloads have dropped down by half since January of this yr and fewer than 1 / 4 of the variety of day by day downloads it had in 2022. The agency’s evaluation exhibits that since 2020, SmartNews has seen a complete of roughly 45 million complete installs. Given the decline in downloads, Apptopia mentioned a determine of 10 million lively customers immediately would now be “a stretch.”
Picture Credit: Appfigures
One other agency, Sensor Tower, added extra perception, noting that SmartNews had, on common, roughly 1.7 million worldwide day by day lively customers between Q1 2023 and Q3 2023. This represents a “materials” decline in customers, the agency mentioned, down a mean of 28% year-over-year per quarter throughout this timeframe. A former worker for SmartNews additionally estimated that month-to-month actives are actually seemingly within the 5-6 million consumer vary, we’re instructed, which was supported by the third-party information. Sensor Tower’s estimates point out the SmartNews app has roughly 5 million worldwide month-to-month lively customers from Q1-Q3 2023, down a mean of 30% year-over-year, per quarter, it mentioned.
SmartNews declined to touch upon any of the figures offered by the analytics companies and declined to reveal any numbers itself.
A current evaluation of what went unsuitable at SmartNews by information web site Remainder of World pinned the app’s downturn on Suzuki’s “unconventional management.”
Particularly it described how, in the important thing market of the U.S., he resisted product updates and was preoccupied extra with the U.S. political local weather greater than on viewers metrics.
However one other facet of his management may need additionally been about communication. When the corporate introduced that Suzuki was stepping down on the firm and handing over the reigns to his co-founder Kaisei Hamamoto, it additionally famous that SmartNews was selecting up a brand new CTO out of the U.S. The corporate had recruited Cory Ondrejka — a notable veteran of Fb and Second Life who was working at Google on the time — to hitch SmartNews. He instructed TechCrunch that he was recruited instantly by Suzuki for the function. Then, on the day he joined, he had no concept that he’d be working with a unique CEO.
“It was information to me,” he mentioned in an interview final month with TechCrunch.
Ondreijka admitted he may not have been satisfied to leap from Google to SmartNews if it hadn’t been Suzuki doing the recruiting instantly — the 2 had met beforehand, years earlier than — however insisted issues had been positive regardless of that surprising first-day shock.
“I’m very pleased with the place [the company] is true now and the place we’re going,” he mentioned. “We have now all of us have numerous work to do… However I really feel very supported.” (SmartNews declined a request to interview new CEO Kaisei Hamamoto.)
Sensor Tower additionally instructed that lapsed product iterations and have launches seemingly contributed to falling shopper curiosity and interplay with the SmartNews app.
As an illustration, SmartNews’ try at launching a extra uplifting part to its app, SmartTake, didn’t stay as much as the duty in our early evaluate of the function this fall, discovering that the part nonetheless included the type of tales that may encourage “doomscrolling”  — like tales of assassination and homicide, a author’s strike, dementia, and extra.
A give attention to extra positivity remains to be a windmill that SmartNews is chasing.
“I believe that you would be able to’t construct a product that leaves folks feeling sad and indignant on a regular basis after which count on to be constructing one thing that long run is reaching your targets and admittedly aligned with what folks want and what the mission of the corporate is,” Ondrejka mentioned. “Round information, you need folks to have the ability to perceive what’s occurring on the earth. You need to have the ability to do this in a means that doesn’t go away [users] feeling like they’ve been simply hammered by the method.”
He declined to speak concerning the specifics of what the corporate’s subsequent steps could be. But a few of these have been lengthy in coming up to now. From what we perceive from a supply, an overhaul of the app dubbed “Mission Atlas” — which had been deliberate to launch by year-end 2023 — has but to occur. A spokesperson for the corporate has mentioned that there will probably be information arising within the coming months, which might lastly be this launch.
SmartNews’s challenges have had different, extra public ramifications. Critiques of the corporate on Glassdoor have dropped its ranking to below 3 stars, with many saying the corporate’s future within the U.S. is unsure, whereas others complained about how this yr’s layoffs had been dealt with.
These personnel shifts have additionally impacted working by means of iterations, too.
“Each time you could have an organization that’s going by means of, delivering one thing new, alignment is a problem by itself, even when you could have full freedom,” he mentioned. “There are not any magic wands to simply trigger everyone to immediately know what to do.”
Whichever route SmartNews goes subsequent, evidently competitors will stay tight.
Though some social platforms have moved away from the expensive efforts of constructing and working information machines, a swarm of Twitter/X alternate options — like Instagram Threads, Mastodon, Bluesky, and others — have been positioning themselves as locations to get breaking information. Instagram’s co-founders have additionally launched a information aggregator app of their very own this yr with Artifact. The app was nearing 407K installs as of earlier this fall, in keeping with information.ai.
And TikTok’s big pull with youthful customers particularly continues to maintain it within the combine for information dissemination. A current report from Pew discovered that the variety of adults who mentioned they bought their information from Bytedance’s user-generated video app moved as much as 14% from simply 3% in 2020.Â
Different apps, together with Flipboard and Substack, have launched options of their very own to enhance information discovery and dialog, together with Flipboard’s editorial desks for the fediverse and Substack’s Twitter-like Notes. The latter additionally redesigned its app in September to spice up discovery and engagement.
One space that appears to be up for dialogue is whether or not “information” would be the solely factor long run that SmartNews will mixture.
“Aggregation is that this delightfully broad phrase that has picked up a really particular set of set of definitions, primarily based on what we’ve seen over the past decade,” Ondrejka mentioned. “For this notion of delivering high quality info, aggregation is a wonderfully good phrase to explain that. [But] I might be fairly stunned if the product we’re transport at some time period sooner or later is strictly the product you’re seeing now as a result of the fact is the chance. As know-how modifications — and what makes technological modifications so each thrilling and generally terrifying — what folks’s expectations are change. What what’s useful to them modifications. And may you mix that [with your] imaginative and prescient? I believe there’s a path by means of right here. [Users] are going to inform us one thing each second alongside the best way. I believe our class will most likely proceed to be aggregation as a result of it’s phrase.”
