An app that is pitched as "TikTok for news" has had its articles read nearly 8 million times in its first 12 months. Volv provides short-form content about finance, politics, and popular culture. It is designed to capture and keep the attention of millennials.
TikTok is no stranger to providing inspiration for other apps. Its short-form video content has been the inspiration for the likes of Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, while Snapchat has recently reimagined its Duets resharing feature. In addition to the short-form format, it is TikTok's feed swiping functionality that Volv has drawn on, which it has also likened to the dating app Tinder.
Volv boils articles down to an average of around 70 words, according to a Business Insider interview with its founders. This is to hit the nine-second attention span that they suggest people now have and makes it possible for users to read six articles in under a minute, with around 50 published a day to choose from. Co-founder Priyanka Vazirani told Business Insider that the app's swipeable format is crucial to making it attractive to the millennial market it's targeted at, which is why the app also uses artificial intelligence to eliminate biased views so that users can make up their own minds about stories — something Vazirani and the app's other co-founder Shannon Almeida say millennials particularly value. They've also decried the newsletter format that many publishers like Twitter are reverting to.
How To Use 'TikTok For News' App Volv
Volv is available for both Android and iOS. On opening the app for the first time, users are prompted to pick at least four categories to follow from topics like science & tech, business & finance, world news, and pop culture. They can also choose whether or not to opt in for daily updates that flag up three of the day's most important stories in one notification and real-time breaking news notifications about major events.
Once in their feed, users can swipe up and down through content, bookmark ones that they may want to come back to later, and share them via social media. It's possible to navigate to any of the app's topic areas and swipe through their articles in the same way. For certain stories, there's also a timeline feature that threads them together with other related articles to provide a deeper insight into the topic.
Sources: Volv 1, 2, Business Insider