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Post by redcloud on Nov 13, 2005 4:34:27 GMT -5
With Findory you click news articles of interest to you and it selects articles from the web so you read only about what you are interested in. It learns to get to know you with time, and suggests you new things. You get personalized news everyday just by clicking the news article on the homepage. So, how does it work? The personalization algorithm analyzes individual articles, what others have read, and your reading history to build your personalized pages. there is no configuration, nothing exceptional can't reach you. What are the major flaws? You can't discover new things so to speak. You will only learn about your interests. What about open-mindedness? what about discovering new things? what about being surprised by something you didn't suspect would interest you? It means that the more people, the more they decide for you what's good or not. You voluntarily give up privacy, once more, even if they say you don't, you can't know for sure what they're doing with the data collected. How do you feel about it? |
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Post by Koalapupu on Nov 13, 2005 9:00:30 GMT -5
Isn't this what regular media does already?
Fox News caters to the "needs" of a certain group. This group follows Fox News because those news will provide them the view they want to see--no dissenting voices allowed.
Take then from another end for example the blog DailyKos, which reports news (political field mainly) from a liberal standpoint. Are ultra-conservatists reading that blog? No way. Nor are they reading The New Yorker, or The Stranger. Or the readers of those publications, they won't venture to the world of more conservative papers.
Of course this doesn't have to be a political issue, that was just an example.
But even if I go to a BBC site I skim over the headlines that don't interest me at the moment. I probably miss a lot of things I should know about, but I am selective with my news--regrettably. Do youread all the news a site offers? Maybe with a newspaper I'm less selective because that one paper sits around in the house for ages and I can browse through it whenever.
Most "unbiased" news sources, such as BBC and CNN already have a feature in them which allows them to notify you if a topic of your interest is in the news. So basically, if you go read the news only when notifications come in, that's pretty much the same as the site you mentioned.
So I think we already are in the situation where we read what we want to read about, and to make sure that the magazines/web mags will keep their readership they will cater to the needs of their readers. Kind of a cycle that perpetuates itself.
I don't know... I think it would be good to have at least the home page to feature "breaking news" from all over the world and only after logging in you would be able to see your own selected news. I don't think choosing the news you see is necessarily bad, but of course it depends on the person.
I have a feeling that there would be two kinds of people who would subsribe to this kind of a service: 1) People who don't have time to read all the news in-depth, but instead skim headlines and then want to read items that interest them (for various reasons) deeper and 2) people who probably wouldn't read the news anyway and discover anything new, but want to stubbornly just be as they are and read about what they have learned is useful to know to them.
Ahhh, I'm babbling. I don't know if I made any sense. Retreating to have coffee...
Thanks for the interesting topic!
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Post by redcloud on Nov 13, 2005 9:18:18 GMT -5
someone of your 2nd category might be a person who, for example, wouldn't be interested in anything happening abroad - i know such people. Had a big natural disaster just happened, this person wouldn't know about it unless listening to/watch news flashes elsewhere.
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Post by Koalapupu on Nov 14, 2005 5:57:41 GMT -5
Would the person in your example have seen these newsflashes like, say, at a friend's place, or while a tv was on and he just kept watching the news when they came on after the program he was watching?
Because I believe that such people who "passively" follow news would not even subscribe to a service that would provide them the news they are interested in.
And then this of course raises the question of what news are important and what not. And to whom they are important.
I go to the BBC, CNN, Helsingin Sanomat and YLE24 (Finnish news sites) sites at least twice a day to check the updates. Once a week I read magazines such as Salon.com, and The Stranger (to find out what's going on in Seattle). --and there are still important things happening in the world I have no clue about. And I consider myself a semi-active news reader.
Like I asked earlier, do you yourself read everything a magazine or a news site offers? What are your personal reasons for reading the news sites you visit the most?
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