CNN developing news aggregation service to battle Facebook, Apple

CNN is developing its own news aggregation platform in an attempt to rival Facebook and Apple.

The project has been codenamed “NewsCo” (not to be confused with News Corp.) and will likely include a blend of free and subscription news from a variety of sources, reports The Information.

According to an interview with CNN’s Andrew Morse, CNN is looking for a way to counter the power that tech giants have in controlling how news content reaches consumers.

In addition to serving as a way for users to discover news stories, CNN could also include its own original content as well as add context to other sources’ reporting using its own content.

Both Facebook and Apple have developed popular news discovery and aggregation services, but publishers sometimes run afoul with them and how they rank and prioritize stories — as well as battles over ad sales.

Creating a service to rival Facebook and Apple would likely be a formidable challenge — and it’s worth noting CNN appears to be more than willing to include content from other media outlets in its product but with the understanding it would have more control over algorithms that determine what users see what and when.