Twitter Acquires Brief Team – Subscription News App

Twitter Acquires Brief Team to Enhance News Experience

Twitter has expanded its recent series of acquisitions with the acqui-hiring of the team behind Brief, a news aggregator and summary application. The startup, founded by former Google engineers, launched last year with the intention of addressing prevalent issues within the current news landscape.

Addressing Challenges in News Consumption

Brief aimed to resolve problems such as information overload, news-related burnout, potential media bias, and algorithms prioritizing engagement metrics over factual reporting. The application operated on a subscription model, providing summarized news content to its users.

The financial details of this acquisition have not been disclosed by Twitter.

Background of Brief’s Founders

Nick Hobbs, co-founder and CEO of Brief, previously held a product manager position at Google, contributing to projects including augmented reality, Google Assistant, the Google mobile application, and autonomous vehicle technology.

Andrea Huey, co-founder and CTO, served as a senior software engineer at Google, focusing on the Google iOS app, and also gained experience at Microsoft.

Subscription Model and Potential Limitations

Despite the promising concept behind Brief, its growth may have been limited by its subscription-based approach. A monthly fee of $4.99 was required for access, which presented a challenge given the lack of established brand recognition compared to traditional news organizations.

For context, a digital subscription to The New York Times currently starts at $4 per week with a promotional offer.

Integration into Twitter’s Experience.org Group

According to Twitter, the Brief team, consisting of four individuals, will be integrated into the company’s Experience.org division. Their work will focus on enhancing areas related to public conversation on the Twitter platform, specifically Twitter Spaces and the Explore feature.

Twitter anticipates leveraging the founders’ expertise from Brief to develop and expedite projects within these areas.

Potential Improvements to Twitter’s Explore Feature

Twitter’s Explore section currently functions as a “news” hub, aggregating top stories across various categories alongside trending topics. However, it currently lacks a robust system for distilling news to its core facts and presenting information in a balanced manner, a capability that Brief’s application offered.

The current presentation includes headlines, brief descriptions, and relevant tweets, leaving room for improvement in comprehensive news summarization.

Speculation exists regarding the potential integration of news-focused features into Twitter Blue, the company’s subscription service.

Twitter’s Proactive Acquisition Strategy

Twitter initiated contact with Brief to express its acquisition interest. The company is actively seeking to acquire talent that will complement its existing teams and accelerate product development efforts.

Recent Acqui-hires by Twitter

Over the past year, Twitter has completed several similar acqui-hires, including those of Scroll (a distraction-free reading service), Breaker (a social podcasting application), Squad (a social screen-sharing app), and Reshuffle (an API integration platform). The Revue newsletter platform was also acquired and directly integrated into Twitter’s ecosystem.

Furthermore, Twitter engaged in acquisition discussions with Clubhouse and ShareChat, which would have represented significantly larger mergers.

Founders’ Perspective on the Acquisition

“We’re really glad we ended up at Twitter,” stated Nick Hobbs to TechCrunch.

He further explained, “Andrea and I founded Brief to build news that fostered a healthy discourse, and Twitter’s genuine commitment to improve the public conversation is deeply inspiring. We are confident that our experience at Brief will contribute to the exciting developments currently underway at Twitter.”

Hobbs also expressed continued optimism regarding the future of paid journalism, noting that Brief demonstrated a willingness among consumers to pay for a refined news experience.

Industry Reaction and Funding Details

Ilya Kirnos, founding partner and CTO at SignalFire, commented, “Brief pioneered a fresh vision for journalism, focused on delivering only the news you need, rather than overwhelming you with information. SignalFire was proud to support Nick Hobbs and Andrea Huey, who are now bringing this philosophy to Twitter.”

Brief had previously secured $1 million in seed funding from SignalFire and a group of angel investors, including David Lieb, Maia Bittner, and Matt Macinnis from Sequoia Scouts.

Brief’s App Shutdown

As a consequence of the acquisition, Brief will discontinue its subscription application on July 31. Current users will be notified of the shutdown, and the app will remain available on the App Store, offering access to its archives.