Specifically, it was this passage:
The experience of consuming news on the web today fails to take full advantage of the power of technology. It doesn't understand what users want in order to give them what they need. When I go to a site like the New York Times or the San Jose Mercury, it should know what I am interested in and what has changed since my last visit. If I read the story on the US stimulus package only six hours ago, then just show me the updates the reporter has filed since then (and the most interesting responses from readers, bloggers, or other sources). If Thomas Friedman has filed a column since I last checked, tell me that on the front page. Beyond that, present to me a front page rich with interesting content selected by smart editors, customized based on my reading habits (tracked with my permission). Browsing a newspaper is rewarding and serendipitous, and doing it online should be even better. This will not by itself solve the newspapers' business problems, but our heritage suggests that creating a superior user experience is the best place to start.What irked them is that, for those of us in the trenches at your average regional news source, a site that can actually do all that sounds beyond impossible, indeed, far-fetched. "Maybe the Yankees can field a team like that, but how can we?" They may be right. Damn Yankees.
But that doesn't mean we can't aspire to such technological prowess. Not trying was one of the things that got our business into this mess in the first place.
And, no one could take exception to the last phrase, which rang so true for one of my smart colleagues: "...creating a superior user experience is the best place to start."
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I will have to read that Google guy's entire post this weekend. It strikes me that he is fundamentally wrong about one thing in the excerpt: the serendipity of the newspaper experience. That is not, and can't, be duplicated on-line, I think. (This feeds a longer essay I am toying with about newspapers and the happy accident of community). In fact it is precisely the silo-like nature of search (that the fellow describes with the tell-me-what-you-know-I- know-already hyopthetical paper) that is the salient difference between online and dimensional news consumption. There are few surprises on the Internet, because everyone goes there looking for something partiucualr (the I feel luck button not withstanding). There is always something you don't expect on A-11. Also, your blog looks cooler than mine.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea... My Google Reader and my.Yahoo pages both do this, scanning my many rss feeds and offering me the ones I'm most likely to read, based on what I read before... Yes, this filters out some of the serendipity of paging through the newspaper. But the 'honcho' suggests both -- one display of things you're likely to read, and another display where the site prioritizes and exercises news judgment... Fire it up!
ReplyDeleteI think that one of the things that needs to happen is more collaboration between tech developers and journalists so that we see more of that kind of innovation taking place. I've been reading this interesting book by Nicholas Negroponte, called "Being Digital," that talks about how technology is expected to shape our communications in the future. The amazing thing is it was written in 1995 and it's on target about so many things happening now. He also talks about technology moving towards computer interfaces that act as our butlers, knowing exactly what we will want and need without asking.
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