I'm not the only person that sets my alarm a little bit earlier than normal so I can open my eyes only to roll over to the other side of my body, grab my fully charged phone off the nightstand only to run the battery down in order to check all my social apps. I check Twitter every now and again for worthy tweets that may or may not fill me in on news every so often or sometimes make me laugh. I then venture out and check Instagram and scroll fiercely through picture after picture of the ones that I follow, and finally I check Snapchat stories from the night before and the snaps I may have been lucky enough to have been sent to me directly. However, there’s a part in my morning social media fix that is probably unlike others-- I check ‘theSkimm’ and read over the news headlines from the previous day and what I need to know about topics happening now.
The initial reaction when I subscribed to theSkimm was to talk about the new things I learned that were taking place around the world. Believe it or not it's fun to be in the know and have the ability to have meaningful and mature conversations with those around me. My roommate and I subscribed around the same time and would always ask "did you see that on theSkimm this morning?" or "can you believe that happened yesterday?" It was truly part of my morning routine before I would take on a day full of classes, sorority meetings, homework and watching a few too many episodes of 90210.
You might be wondering what the motive was behind the company or who would really take the time to read news stories every night and type out a easy to read email every night so it would be easier for students and professionals to read every morning bright and early. Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin, both under 30 years old, worked for a prestigious and well known network, NBC, but decided it was time to come up with another news outlet for us millennials. They were their busy friends news outlet when they didn't have the time to watch the news or read over a news website. They decided their friends weren't the only busy people in this world and that it was time for the rest of the millennials to have access to the news around them and have it accessible at their fingertips.They started theSkimm and their idea, in my opinion, couldn't of gone any better.
In the three years the company has been around, they have moved from their couch to an office, went from two employees to 15, met celebrities and presidential candidates, been interviewed and published on Forbes list, Huffington Post, New York Times, and other prestigious companies that recognize their potential and all around use and have jumped from having a few thousand subscribers to now over 1.5 million which include celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and many others.
Not only do they have emails with the headlines and information about the headlines all on the same page, but they have guides on their website that deal with pressing and incredibly massive matters such as Greece’s financial crisis, the gay marriage ruling, the Patriot Act, and many more. These guides go in depth about topics that are confusing to a large majority of people and put them into understandable words.
TheSkimm also allows readers to be social and share articles on their own social media platforms and provide easy one touch sharing. Combine the specific ads they choose to showcase on their website, the capabilities of the skimm'bassadors that work to achieve the goal of gaining more subscribers, the opportunities for the future of this business are endless.
From the front page of theSkimm website:
"This is a service everyone needs. You may follow the 'right' people on Twitter or get the 'right' breaking news alerts but with so much noise, it's hard to filter what you need to know in politics, international affairs, sports, entertainment, technology etc. theSkimm is your filter. We cross party and subject lines to break down what it seems everyone else is talking about."
Think this might be something you wanna try? Subscribe here and never have to search through websites and tweets just to find relevant news. I promise you won't regret it when you roll over every morning and want to read some actual content rather than scrolling through Twitter or Instagram only to get out of bed with the only take-away of a lower battery percentage.
