The news junkie

Adam Boone is a news junkie. (Read on: might it be why he’s so da*n smart?) Know that beloved friend who regularly sparks a 25 chain email discussion with you and your friends about an article he found? That’s Adam.

As the Finance Manager of New York for IPC Systems (a leading provider of financial trading communications solutions), Adam manages a whopping $200M dollar P&L and a team in charge of billing for the entirety of North America. As you’d imagine, this keeps him incredibly busy. It also limits the time he has to pursue his love of absorbing and discussing the news. Until he discovered Pinyadda…

Pinyadda is his daily news outlet

Pinyadda solves a time and efficiency problem for Adam. Before Pinyadda it was nearly impossible for him to find the time to individually visit his twenty or so go-to sites for news. Pinyadda has simplified his finding and sharing by “delivering the content that I want as well as letting me see what my friends are reading and saying about it.” In fact, he keeps Pinyadda open most of the day so he can quickly glance at headlines as they break and to stay updated with what’s going on in the world.

Self-proclaimed email-chain-obsessed, it was refreshing to hear how Pinyadda’s private messages have also simplified the sharing aspect of Adam’s crush on the news. “Once you get all your friends on there, you can share articles so easily with one ‘Pin it’.” He’s such a fan of this ease of use that he thinks getting other friends and colleagues on board is the biggest source of potential for our users. This aspect is also where he thinks Pinyadda could improve. He’d like to see the addition of groups to private sharing to simplify the sharing process even more.

As you’d expect, when Adam visits Pinyadda he scans his People feed first to see what his friends are reading and discussing. More recently, however, he’s found himself addicted to his Topics feeds (which really excited me!). When realized he could receive news from all kinds of sources on specific interests, he added 30 more Topics. Like most users who follow several Topics, it’s been a vehicle for Adam to discover some really interesting sites and blogs that he had not known about.

Adam thinks big

When I asked Adam what he likes most about Pinyadda, I was expecting to hear him voice a particular feature. Nope. Instead, he reflected on his generation and how Pinyadda could help solve the larger problem of how many younger people are out of touch with world events and the news affecting their nation.

Adam went on to describe how the social aspect of Pinyadda actually makes getting the news fun. In this sense he sees Pinyadda as a “social movement.” He’s noticed people he invites who aren’t news junkies becoming news junkies. I quote:

“I think the social implications [of Pinyadda] are a lot bigger than anyone really realizes at this point. In the long run, it could have big implications on how younger generations get their news and actually get interested in it.”

On that note Adam, welcome as an official Yadda squad member! Thanks for taking time out of your busy day to chat. I enjoyed learning about how Pinyadda fits into your daily routine, and how we might improve the platform for the news junkies of the world!

Here are the topics I’d recommend following Adam on:

1. Finance
2. Banking
3. Private Equity

Tags: customer development, No User Left Behind

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 11:37 pm and is filed under Yadda Squad. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.