Personalization Isn’t the Future of News (I Hope) • Hacker News Board

Re: Personalization Isn’t the Future of News (I Hope)

#21

Post by knowtheory » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 6:14 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #13

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personalization in entertainment is one thing; but it becomes a problem when personalization extends to news , i.e. the information about the world that we use to make civic decisions.

Having news that doesn't interest me show up in my news aggregator of choice doesn't magically make me want to read it. If I have a bias, I'm going to apply it to a set of news articles either way, so I might as well use something that does that work for me.

The filter bubble is just a dumb meme that's running around right now because of book sales and the like.

The real point is that business models based around personalization don't make any sense. I wouldn't worry about it, because none of these systems are going to succeed.

The 20th century and the era of big media was a fluke to begin with. It was a rare and transient state, and it is no more.

Re: Personalization Isn’t the Future of News (I Hope)

#22

Post by c0riander » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 7:16 PM UTC

jeremymims wrote: post #20

JacobAldridge wrote: post #18

I think it's worth observing, since several comments here seem to be assuming otherwise, that I interpret the OP's argument as being "I hope news doesn't get personal" for the purpose of an informed public capable of making critical decisions, as opposed to proclaiming it's a preferable business model. Of course you will sell more chocolate ice-creams to a chocoholic than if you tried to force them to buy broccoli, b…

Thanks Jacob. As the writer, this was exactly my point.

I understand the point but I think there is room for personalization in news without the "chocolate ice cream effect" you're afraid of.

For instance, I like to read a lot of news about my local area, business, startups, health, and fashion/style - I am not very interested in a local news about anywhere else, or anything about TV/entertainment news, for example. So it's possible to personalize a newstream by topic rather than by slant, since I am going to be most interested in those topics and really not interested at all in reading the others (just like consuming news in analog). In fact, these types of personalizations, where I could have a greater degree of trust that something would be interesting to me, would probably expand the articles I would choose to read. This way, something pops up that I would normally pass over, and I could at least think "Hmm, there's probably a reason this is on my feed" (kind of like when something pops up on the HN frontpage).

Re: Personalization Isn’t the Future of News (I Hope)

#23

Post by jeremymims » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 7:45 PM UTC

This is a very fascinating set of comments. We have people that believe that the news is irrelevant, mere entertainment, a form of brainwashing (!), and something that only encompasses quick hit reporting. Then we have those that argue for more specialization since it works just fine for Pandora and Netflix. It seems to be a minority position that a diverse set of news creates a better informed citizenry and this is something desirable. I'm not sure if this is just among techies or if this is a broader belief. I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Re: Personalization Isn’t the Future of News (I Hope)

#24

Post by Symmetry » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 7:45 PM UTC

I very much see what the author is getting at, but I think he mis-diagnoses the problem. To the extent that the news is homogeneous then, all things being equal, we're going to get stuff that panders to the lowest common denominator, not in depth or challenging reporting. I mean, have you watched cable news recently?

I think that more than just have everybody have the same source of news the writer would really prefer that that news was more in depth and critical than most of what you find on television, or in other words that other people should embrace his preferences in news watching. I probably agree with him! But in practice I think talking about or trying to achieve the first when you really want the second is going to be counterproductive.

Re: Personalization Isn’t the Future of News (I Hope)

#25

Post by apl » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 8:07 PM UTC

dreamdu5t wrote: post #15

News is obselete. Wikipedia has replaced it. I don't even read 90% of "news articles" because they're not very factual or objective, and scant on details. I just go to Wikipedia, I go search for first-hand evidence. I want a service that's just facts not "news."

Two problems with this:

1) Not everyone has time do to do this kind of fact-checking/analysis.

2) Epistemically, there's no difference between reading Wikipedia (an, at best, second-hand source itself) and the New York Times.

Re: Personalization Isn’t the Future of News (I Hope)

#26

Post by mbesto » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 9:16 PM UTC

Can't the same be said about news outlets with agendas?

For example people who only watch Fox News or read the Daily Mail.

Re: Personalization Isn’t the Future of News (I Hope)

#27

Post by nitrogen » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 9:23 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #12

Ben Bagdikian wrote a book called "The Information Machines" about personalized news circa 1970. One chapter in the middle of it makes the most damning indictment of the concept of "news" that I've ever seen. At that time, the editor of a local newspaper had to look at thousands of news wire article that he could run and had only a few seconds to evaluate an article and decide if they want to put it in or not. Fast f…

even if you're watching the events in Egypt on Al Jazeera, it's probably something that isn't going to change your behavior or make a real difference in your life.

I must disagree with this. Even though it makes no immediate difference to one living in a stable country with no impending self destruction, the events, motivations, and ideas surrounding Egypt's peaceful revolution can leave a permanent mark on one's consciousness, among other things providing new ideas for technologies that could be useful to the oppressed.

Re: Personalization Isn’t the Future of News (I Hope)

#28

Post by anamax » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 9:30 PM UTC

Symmetry wrote: post #24

I very much see what the author is getting at, but I think he mis-diagnoses the problem. To the extent that the news is homogeneous then, all things being equal, we're going to get stuff that panders to the lowest common denominator, not in depth or challenging reporting. I mean, have you watched cable news recently? I think that more than just have everybody have the same source of news the writer would really prefe…

> To the extent that the news is homogeneous then, all things being equal, we're going to get stuff that panders to the lowest common denominator, not in depth or challenging reporting.

You don't understand the proposals for "common news".

They're all basically "you'll see what I think that you should see I'll tell you that it's good for you and that I'm not censoring anything important."

Re: Personalization Isn’t the Future of News (I Hope)

#29

Post by pilooch » Wed, Jun 08, 2011, 7:18 AM UTC

alextp wrote: post #3

In all honesty, reading this makes me want the writer to actually spend some time reading grocery store counter magazines or cosmopolitan, or even watching 5 straight hours of fox news or reality shows or whatever goes completely against his values. Truth is, no one would come back to a website that showed them uninteresting things.

What matters is the interaction between the user and the news system. For this reason, I don't believe the comparison with a shop, tv or a magazine is pertinent. IMO the key element is that the news system should never lock the user up. The most annoying thing with personalized filters is that they're mostly invisible.

Re: Personalization Isn’t the Future of News (I Hope)

#30

Post by jdietrich » Wed, Jun 08, 2011, 10:09 AM UTC

I don't know about the US, but here in the UK the easiest way to find out someone's political perspective is to ask them what newspaper they read. We just don't have a national newspaper that doesn't have a political agenda. You can choose a paper, safe in the knowledge that nothing you read will challenge your world view or upset your prejudices. There's nothing stopping you from reading all the other papers, but the only people who do are Media Studies students and PR men.

As explained in 1987: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M