Pulse hits major milestone: four billion stories read

Newsreader launches new analytics report to highlight the data it is collecting

Pulse, a newsreader for Android and iOS devices, made two announcements Wednesday: not only did it hit a major milestone with its userbase, but the company is about to take the information it has gathered about how its users read to news to create a new analytics report.

First the user news: Pulse now says that its users have read four billion stories on its platform.

While it took Pulse 100 days before it had 10 million stories read, it now sees more than that number of stories read every single day. On top of that, Pulse says that the number of stories being read per person, per day, is actually going up.

“These numbers are more than just impressions, views, or swipes—they mean that Pulse users are expanding their worlds, through compelling news articles, insightful blog posts, and engaging videos," Pulse wrote.

“These statistics contrast the gloomy outlook we hear so often about the news industry: we see that people are indeed reading news, and more of it, in more diverse ways than we could have ever anticipated.”

So now that Pulse has its fingers on the, um, pulse of the nation, what will they do with that information?

Given how many stories are being read on the app, and how much data Pulse can gleam from that, it also announced Wednesday that it will use be taking this information and using for its new analytics report, called Pulse Insights.

"We at Pulse have ridden the wave of this rapid change in the way people read and access news, and now we’re looking to the future. We have a wealth of knowledge about how our own community engages with the news, and we can use this data to help uncover different and important information about this evolving industry," Pulse wrote.

Pulse Insights will report on changes and shifts that occur in the publishing world, from the publishing perspective.

Upcoming topics that will be covered include the difference between what iOS and Android users read; how Americans are, or are not, getting informed about this year’s election; what the average lifecycle of a news story is; and how reading patterns differ based on where and how they are read, either between mobile and web, tablets and phones, or Macs and PCs.

Users are also allowed to submit their own story suggestions to Pulse.

“We hope that this project will benefit the entire ecosystem of news publishing, and will help it thrive in this era of immense technological and social change.”

San Francisco-based Pulse was launched in May 2010 by Stanford graduate students Ankit Gupta and Akshay Kothari as part of a course at the Institute of Design, Pulse is one of dozens of personalized news startups that are focusing on making the news customizable. Users simply open the app, select a news category, and start customizing their reading experience with their favorite news sources among their favorite topics. 

Pulse has raised nearly $10 million in funding, including $9 million in Series A financing from New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Greycroft Partners and Lerer Ventures in June 2011.

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