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Most Readers Don't Like Customized News
An anonymous reader writes "Despite the push by organizations such as Google and Yahoo!, a recent study found not everyone is a fan of web-based customization for news. The researchers defined customization as when the user gets to choose specific topics to read on a daily basis. Instead, some prefer personalization. This is when the system chooses content based on a reader's past choices. 'The obvious assumption is people would like more control over what they read,' Sundar said. 'We found when it came to evaluating new stories and quality of content, customization was the preferred method for power users. If you were not a power user, you wanted the system to tailor the news for you.'"
Why does the title "Professor of Communications" sound like "Bullshit Artist Extraordinare" to my ears?
People love personalized news. Most folks I know get their news from Google News or other customizable news aggregators for just such a reason - it is a digest that you can edit so you are only seeing stories that matter to you. For example, I don't care about sports or entertainment. Lindsay Lohan's trials and tribulations, and big 'roided out athletes beating their mammas, are just not important. I also do not enjoy getting AP or Reuters news - neither can really be trusted after all their fuckups and propaganda plants. However I do enjoy getting news from abroad and Google lets me do this.
Professors of Communications are the people we can blame for the sorry, shabby state of the media today. Infotainment is the name of the game thanks to these bastards and their corporate overlords.
it fouled up my reading to no end. From the different layouts to it choosing stuff it thought I wanted over others. I prefer the old version much better. I am more likely to visit sites like DrudgeReport which throw it all up there and I pick and choose with ease instead of trying to figure out where something I might want to read went. I bounce between CNN/FOX to get all the stories afterward and then back to google's news collector.
Its getting to the point where my local newspaper's website, with its lack of customization is much more readable. With customization I am never sure what I miss.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I'd be pleased just to get rid of all the anonymous commenting on most news sites. The level of nastiness leveled by pretty much anyone commenting on sites like Yahoo News is just mindblowing. Anonymous web commenting has gotten so out of hand, someone even made a firefox plugin to filter it!
I don't think I like the idea of computerized customization of what news I see. I think for real news, the question shouldn't be "is this a topic I'm already interested in?" because maybe you'd be interested if someone informed you about it. The real question is, "Is this important?" I don't see myself ever trusting a computer very far in determining what's important.
Of course, the problem is that the people at news organizations are also doing a terrible job of determining what's important. News organizations are focused on things like Farmville, Lindsay Lohan, the newest viral video to become a big hit, and the latest Twitter buzz. Honestly, even if you do care about those things, you probably shouldn't.
Not that they should prevent you from learning about these things, or even completely fail to cover them, but I feel like media outlets are really failing to keep a sense of priority and a sense of perspective.
"you wanted the system to tailor the news for you"
End of story. Holy shit who would have guessed.