Nuzzel makes following news shared on Facebook and Twitter easy

Your contacts on Facebook and Twitter are probably sharing some interesting news stories, but sometimes they’re hidden among all of the game posts or random 140-character thoughts. As a solution, Nuzzel offers a service that can help you sort through the feeds and uncover the most interesting news stories. Previously, the service was only available on the Web and iOS, but they have just released an Android app to meet the same needs.

To get started, grab the Nuzzel app for your Android device. You’ll be prompted to add your Facebook or Twitter account to get started with the newsfeed. To connect your other account, open the slide-out menu on the left-hand side and head to Settings. At the top you’ll see the option to connect either your Facebook or Twitter account.

Some other settings of note are the ability to receive alerts for news items that are shared by 3 to 25 friends. You can also tell the app to only alert you of stories that fit this criteria 1 to 25 times, depending on how often you mind being interrupted. There’s also a daily digest option you may want to toggle if you don’t prefer daily email.

Back in the main feed, you adjust the time frame for the news you’ll be reading through (1 to 24 hours) in the top right-hand corner. Below, you’ll see the news headlines, how many friends have shared each, and a sample of their profile pictures. If you tap the number, you can see the comments (if any) that were shared with the link. Scrolling down will show other news items these friends were interested in (liked).

Tapping a news story will open it with an in-app browser, but you can also switch to text-only view with a single tap if you prefer distraction-free reading.

While the app only offers access to your Facebook and Twitter streams, with these networks being the most popular, it still offers a great way to see which stories are being shared most. How do you read the news? Share your methods in the comments.