Geeky Times: Indian Startup News on your Mobile

By Shahnawaz Khan on June 22, 2015 10 Comments / 4450 views

I love reading Indian startup news. everything about them — what’s the latest startup getting launched, who’s got funded, who’s trolling who, who’s sharing their learning’s & story etc. However, I had to wade through more than half a dozen websites & apps to read all these. On top of that, the experience on mobile was not what I would have wanted.

My love for android programming & the need to read startup news in a convenient manner on my mobile got me to create Geeky Times. The app is a feed reader that fetches Indian start-up content on mobile and get’s me to read news at one place without having to go to different sites or open different apps.

Sharing it here so that people can try it out in case they have similar needs.
The app is a weekend project/side project of mine and hence could have a few rough edges. There is no rocket-science-big-data-backend or high-funda-technology used in the app. It’s just a plain & simple app that does one and only one thing — help me in my reading of startup news 🙂

The download link is: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.startup.news.magazine

@happiestkhan

Comments

Shahnawaz Khan

10 Comments

asha chaudhry June 23, 2015, 6:55 am

hey shahnawaz,

neat idea

three very quick observations:

i) geeky times – the name is not completely synonymous with startup news (in my view)

ii) very sad to not see therodinhoods mentioned in your list of reads :((((((

iii) pls add your twitter handle at the end of your post so i can mention it while sharing over social (despite point ii :))
Shahnawaz Khan June 23, 2015, 7:12 am

Thanks for the feedback Asha. Really appreciated.

#1: The name. Yes, it is not synonymous with startup news. I agree :-))). As it was/is a weekend & side project, hence named it geeky times :-))

#2: I would LOVE to add therodinhoods but there is no feed url that I can point to for the same :-((((

#3: added.

Thanks again Asha.
asha chaudhry June 23, 2015, 7:51 am

hey the RSS feed icon is there on the homepage – even i had to hunt for it :()
Shahnawaz Khan June 23, 2015, 8:10 am

Thanks for the link Asha.

Will add this (or the latest activity) RSS feed link and have an updated version of the app uploaded to playstore.

Cheers,
Greg Acuna June 25, 2015, 7:24 pm

Hi Shahnawaz,

Downloaded this in the afternoon after a few tries, but not sure the problems getting it have anything to do with the app or how your account is setup. The normal web-based Google Play store didn’t install it, but from the device it downloaded okay. First of all I like the app, the simple functionality and the idea. I agree with Asha that “Geeky Times” doesn’t tell us immediately it is startup news, but it didn’t bother me until I read her comment. I thought it was catchy, but with some thought it goes both ways because it doesn’t suggest startups and geeky suggests tech and not all startups with great ideas are tech…but perhaps you limiting it to tech fields by the RSS feeds you’ll choose. So you could do with a better name and if you need help on that feel free to ping me…I’d be happy to spend an hour with you (no charge) just brainstorming names…which is work I’ve done for a variety of medium to large businesses.

It’s a simple app and works well, but the generic graphic for stories without images is to me is too flat and rather boring…and you could go far with just a variety of 5 to 10 different graphics which even if placed randomly will make the page more appealing.

From a functionality point I wish clicking on the left facing arrow on the title bar would take me back to the next level up when I was inside a story (rather than just using the back button)…and I wish I could swipe left or right to bring up the previous/next stories. I understand it was a weekend project so these are just helpful hints if you decided to work on it another weekend.

Thanks for making it. Now that I’m working in a new startup it’s great to have all that news together. Cheers.
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal June 28, 2015, 11:25 am

hmmmm … cool
Shahnawaz Khan July 3, 2015, 3:00 pm

Hi Greg,

Thanks a ton for the detailed feedback. It really helps.

NAME: Will try & think of a name and see if I can update it to better signify startup news 🙂 I personally, don’t mind any name as long as it gives me the startup news stories 🙂

Stories with no images: I agree that to many of non-image news cards will look boring. Will try out your suggestion of having few stock images and see how it looks. Thanks for the suggestion.

UX: Left/Right swipe etc: Not happening for sometime in foreseeable future. I know it will be great but no bandwidth to work on that aspect.

Thanks a ton again buddy for taking the time out and giving your feedback/suggestions.
Shahnawaz Khan July 3, 2015, 3:01 pm

Thanks Alok 🙂
asha chaudhry August 29, 2015, 5:24 am

hey shahnawaz, how are things progressing at geeky times?
Shahnawaz Khan September 3, 2015, 10:58 am

Hey Asha,

Found some time to work on the app & did an update. Incorporated some of the feedback suggested here and now readers can save a story for referencing later also.

The only part not happy with is not being able to integrate therodinhoods.wpengine.comin a meaningful way 🙁

Cheers,