Introducing Newshub 2.0

For news agencies and other organisations that sell content to publishers, the tools they use to deliver products to their subscribers are a key part of doing business. Gone are the days when a simple email alert would suffice. Today, clients expect instant access to articles, easy-to-use platforms, and real-time updates on content publishing schedules.

Newshub, our distribution portal for media organisations, was made to fill this need. Developed in partnership with the Australian Associated Press, Newshub easily integrates with Superdesk, our open-source newsroom management system, and helps creators deliver content based on clients’ needs. Since its launch in 2018, millions of news articles and photos have been distributed via the Newshub portal.

Today, Newshub has achieved a new milestone: the release version 2.0.

One of the biggest changes to the new Newshub is on the development side, which will benefit future users. While Newshub has long been a proven distribution workhorse, it was not originally built to be a multi-lingual, scalable open-source project. Now it is. With better separation of core and customer-specific codes, any updates to Newshub core going forward will benefit the entire Newshub community. In other words, updates to Newshub core will be available to others.

Another important change with 2.0 – made in partnership with the Finnish news agency STT – is an upgrade to the search functionality, which will extend search options to make it easy to view older versions of published content. This can be important for news agency clients that are interested in multiple versions of a single story. In Newshub 1.0, only the most recent version of a story was returned with a search query.

To improve the STT user experience, we also shrunk the client-side display screen to enable more content to be viewed without having to scroll. With this enhanced “compact view,” users now get a quicker overview of available content, with up to 30% more content items appearing on the screen.

Other important updates include:

• A new configuration that will put “embargoed” content at the top of the list of news items in the Wire view, allowing clients to see what’s coming and to plan accordingly. (Again, this was done in collaboration with STT).
• Better optimisation for mobile devices.
• Updates to the Newhub Google Analytics integration. 

In today’s hyper-fast news business, content providers need to be at the top of their game to satisfy clients’ needs. Newshub 2.0 makes it easy.

How can Sourcefabric’s open-source tools for the media help your news organisation excel? Get in touch to schedule a free demo.