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Ultimately, Hinz and Wilkens decided that an app would allow them to best reach their audience of news avoiders. “We wanted to provide a safe environment that makes readers feel positive and not overwhelmed, and that works best in an app,” Wilkens explains. An app environment is more easily controlled and more feature rich. Wilkens shares, “You can also connect to users even better, and have more loyalty within an app, than just a page.”

BurdaForward partnered with the Google News Initiative (GNI) in 2023 to launch the News to be Good app. “It was really important to focus on improving tech, and working with GNI made tech part of the framework,” Hinz explains. “GNI helped push us to try out new things and take steps we otherwise might have left to a later stage.”

Hinz uses Good Challenges as an example of a feature influenced by GNI. Integrated into the app, Good Challenges prompted app users to make small but meaningful changes — such as getting rid of digital garbage — to combat a feeling of powerlessness among readers. Those who completed the challenges were then rewarded with digital coins that they could donate to BurdaForward’s NGO partners, like UNICEF.

To further tackle news fatigue, the app provided a succinct news overview that presented critical information in a non-alarmist, constructive way. News to be Good did away with the endless feed of many news sites, fit news stories on a single screen, and avoided sensationalized headlines. “We really tried to give our users the feeling of being in control,” Hinz says.