The Daily Zeitgeist sets itself apart from other apps that provide news feeds by displaying news using tree maps, a visual representation of how the day’s news stacks up.
In Daily Zeitgeist, the more popular or important a story, the bigger screen space that headline box is given. Less important stories take up smaller space, which you can pinch to zoom in on. As stories age, their box color darkens.
To read news, tap a headline box to see a summary bubble, which displays the first paragraph of a story, the number of articles written about the topic, the age of the piece and usually a photo. Single tap the bubble to close it, or double tap to open the full story in the app’s built-in browser.
I’m a big fan of this design. If I’m stealing a few moments to read the news while I’m on the go, Zeitgeist ensures that I’m up-to-speed on the story of the day. I tend to wait to read smaller stories for when I have more time, but if they appear in the app at all they’re usually worth checking out.
Currently, Daily Zeitgeist only supports four feeds: Google News, Reddit, Digg and Yahoo! Buzz. However, you can customize your feeds to only show specific categories, so you can have a Google News feed for top headlines, but also one that displays entertainment news.
You might be satisfied with your current news aggregator, but Daily Zeitgeist is taking feed readers to a new level. Luckily, Zeitgeist is also available in a free Lite version, so you can check this tree-mapping thing out for yourself with no risk.
