An API to access recent news for 10$/100k calls
Hi Indiehackers,
I am building newscatcher -- an API to access the news that have been published online.
If someone knows already what I am talking about then most likely you know about newsapi.org. Also, you might understand that I am building a copy of it.
So, my API will have less data (no querying the historical data, for the MVP); however, newsapi.org plan will cost you 449$ per 250k calls, while I am planning to charge 25$-40$ for the same number of calls.
What do you think about my idea?
Also, I am writing about each and every step on my Medium:
https://medium.com/@kotartemiy
My personal opinion is "copying someone else but cheaper" is not a viable business nor respectful to the R&D and hard work they've put in. Especially .org's that may be a non-profit.
That being said, if their product gives you inspiration to do something different or better or serve a different niche, then there's a value add. So what about if your API provides sentiment analysis of either headlines or article content? What if your service used ML/keyword to provide 1 headline per topic?
I would also ask how this differs from Google Alerts as an RSS feed.
What if the other site is overcharging? Personally I think newsapi.org overcharges for the requests. They do have a free plan but for the paid plans you have to fork out $449 which a lot for someone just starting out.
I guess they have a monopoly on this service so are charging whatever they I want. I think there should be a competition that provides us a more affordable plan. I also checked their archive in wayback machine and they used to have a cheaper plan for $149.
Talking about non-profit, I don't think newsapi.org is one. They simply wanted a domain and .com was taken. And they scrape the whole news article which is illegal and unfair to news publisher.
Ah, then your competitive advantage could be morals & ethics. Highlighting the unethical business practices of your competition can certainly be a competitive advantage. If you happen to be cheaper AND more ethical then there's 2 reasons to choose you. So, if you scrape part of an article or scrape keywords or pass money back to the publisher of each article then that's something to "hang your hat on". As I said, to hang your hat on "they did all the R&D that cost money, now we're just replicating their service but cheaper" is not something I personally would start a business with.
Yes same here. Not the exact same copy but making your product better in some aspect that you feel will help the consumer and can be your selling point.
How do you plan to fetch all news that's been published online? These sites rely on clicks to survive, they don't want to share their content via RSS anymore.
Sounds like a great idea!
Go for it, although improving upon newsapi.org rather than just copying their service is the better play.
a few observations/questions:
You're competing with free (their dev plan). Perhaps those people paying $449 do so for the historical data. Would be helpful to find out what the business customers value about the priced plans before getting started.
$25 for 250k calls is a deal - interested in your infrastructure and how you plan to keep operating costs low.