The idea of a personalised new service has been long debated by journalists. A newspaper is built on the notion of providing a generic news package, whereas the web offers the ability to create what Nicholas Negroponte called “The Daily Me“.
News organisations have different appoaches to the concept of a virtual daily newspaper customized for the individual tastes. Yahoo and Google both hand over a significant amount of editorial control to the user, to put together their collection of news topics and sources.
It seems the BBC is also moving towards personalisation. In a speech to Broadcast‘s Future of News conference last week, the BBC’s director of news, Helen Boaden, talked about plans to build on the prize-winning news website to create a service provisionally called My News Now. In the transcript on the BBC editors’ blog, she says:
This will be a service which allows highly sophisticated personalisation – so whatever your age or interests, you can get the subjects and the styles of news which you find attractive – when you want them, for the present moment or to download for later. There will be audio and video on demand and aggregated pages on a huge range of specialisms.
Currently, the BBC News website allows only a small degree of personalisation. The My News Now would mark a major shift towards personalisation and a move away from the idea of a generic news service with stories selected by editors at the Beeb.
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