Trove, the social news discovery app first created by the Washington Post's digital team, relaunched a completely overhauled suite of iOS apps Wednesday.
The app's concept is similar to news aggregation apps like Zite and Flipboard in that it provides users with curated stories based specific topics. (A "trove" is a curated list of stories based around a single topic.)
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But unlike these apps, Trove doesn't rely on algorithms to predict relevant stories. Instead, each topic is managed by an individual curator who hand-picks each story.
The goal, says CEO Vijay Ravindran, is to reduce signal noise and help readers find all the stories they care about.
"The product is really built on this principle: Readers have a diverse set of interests from fun to serious," he said. "We're going to connect them with curators who are sharing those same interests so there's an opportunity for them to get this really high quality content experience."
Currently, troves are selected and organized by beta curators who are experts in a given field. The "Top Science News" trove, for example, is curated by Science magazine, and "Farm to Table" by former Top Chef contestant Spike Mendelshon. But any user can curate any topic.

Image: Trove
"The system favors curators who are actively picking and who are amassing larger and larger followers," Ravindra added. "Over time, we think quality will go to the top fairly naturally."
Trove's team is headed up by Ravindra and Slashdot founder Rob Malda, who serves as product lead. Based on their editorial roots and close ties with The Washington Post, ensuring the credibility of individual sources was an important step in the app's development.
All of Trove's stories are culled from a list of 15,000 sources, each of which has been vetted by an editor. Users can also submit new sources to Trove for editorial approval.
The app is available for iPhone and iPad, with an Android app planned for later this year.
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