Joe Rutland

Yesterday I announced the GSR Network Android app. Then I spent a good chunk of the day watching the download count.
Seven in the first six to eight hours. Ten by late afternoon.
I gave every place I posted it its own link so I could see where downloads came from. X sent zero. Lounge AI sent zero. LinkedIn sent one.

And 10 isn't even 10 people. GitHub counts every time the file gets pulled down, repeats included, and a few of those were me testing it. It can't tell me how many people installed it, how many different people grabbed it, or whether anybody is actually using it.

Part of that is how I shipped it. It's a free direct APK, signed, with the checksum published, but there's no Google Play listing. You tap the link, your phone throws up a security warning, and most folks stop right there. I'd probably stop too.

So here's what I took from yesterday. Putting a launch in front of strangers is not distribution. I knew that already. Yesterday I watched a counter prove it.

The number I care about now is whether a specific person I named opens it. One download from a buyer I can name is worth more to me than 10anonymous ones.

One guy built this app and shipped it. Ten downloads is ten more than zero. Life of a solopreneur.
gsrnetwork.io/app

Five desks are now together in one app. Sports, AI, politics, entertainment and betting are ready to rock. It’s another step in building useful tools around my journalism experience and AI-assisted development. This is something that I have wanted to get done for a period of time. Now? It's here.

The app is free to download directly, with installation instructions here:
gsrnetwork.io/app?source=lounge-ai
The GSR Network app is for those interested in AI news as well as those interested in sports news, business news, political news, and entertainment news. It is not solely built for journalists, to be clear. So, give it a spin.

Austin Wilson, host of The Austin Wilson Show out of Austin, Texas, asked me a question on our call today that I readily admit that I fumbled in our conversation: "Why do you think you're the only one?"

Boardy connected me with Austin, and I'm grateful he gave me his time. Thank you, Austin. It was wonderful meeting you and being able to discuss the AI scene here in Austin, Texas.

I also need to fix something right now. In an earlier post, I said Austin runs Hack AI. He doesn't do this at all. He knows the folks who do, and he pointed me toward the Hack AI meetup downtown during Austin Tech Week. My mistake, Austin.

Back to his question. He followed it with "what makes you unique that you had this idea that others didn't?" I said I hadn't seen other journalists doing this kind of work. That tells you what I've seen. But, it does not answer what he asked of me at all.

So let me try again.
I'm 62 years old and I've worked in journalism my whole life. I started with a pica pole and a proportion wheel, sizing negatives for print newspapers. Today I write Python, wire up APIs and JSON pipelines, and run everything through GitHub Actions and Vercel. Plenty of journalists have the newsroom years. I've worked with them a whole lot. Plenty of developers have the code. I happen to have both in one person, and GSR Network is what that looks like.

There are six newsrooms plus the Lone Star Report for Texas news. There are NO AI-written stories. Every story links readers back to the original source of that story. Standards? Every single platform carries a standards block built on the Associated Press Stylebook, Chicago Manual of Style, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary and Roget's Thesaurus. And I check every platform every day, by hand. As I told Austin, there's no way in hell I would ever run GSR Network without human hands involved. It will never happen.

Austin said something on the call I wrote down: "AI helps you be more productive, but the folks that are winning with this are the ones that have the experience, the actual subject matter expertise."

Built for journalists by a journalist. That's the answer, Austin.
He also subscribed to the GSR Network Weekly Roundup and the GSR YouTube channel. Appreciate that, sir.

Thanks to a suggestion from Ryan Allis, I have created the GSR Network Weekly Roundup. This is free, covers all six GSR Network newsrooms. The roundup will come out Tuesdays at 9 a.m. Central. Besides the GSR Network Weekly Roundup, you'll also occasionally hear directly from me about journalism and GSR's progress.

Sign up right here -- gsr-network-news.beehiiv.com/subscribe
This is another step forward in the GSR Network world. I'm excited about it and look forward to providing you all with the top headlines and information in every roundup.

Every morning, I take time out to go into Google Search Console and check on the impression and click numbers of all the GSR Network platforms. These numbers indicate to me what is happening across the network when it comes to that data. Obviously, there are peaks and valleys in building out GSR Network. I chose to share these with you today as a reflection of some high-highs and low-lows that I have experienced as a founder, builder, programmer, content editor, journalist, and marketer. These numbers do not show, obviously, the hours and months I have put into GSR Network, which is my own company started out of the ether of time and space. I'm open to comments about these. Also, ads will be going up on the platforms soon. That's still in the works.