UPDATE October 30, 2007: Newser — an Online News Service from HighBeam Research and Michael Wolff — Debuts Today
This Tuesday, October 30, HighBeam Reseach will release Newser.com, a news website that creators Patrick Spain and Michael Wolff hope will change the current trend of content aggregation.
Newser stories run approximately 120 words in length, and feature photos licensed from the Associated Press as well as links to the original story source. Readers can also determine their mix of hard and soft stories through a “slider box,” which Spain hopes will introduce “different ways of how to perceive news.” The site, which was designed by Chicago-based Duo Consulting, also features the top stories of the day and categorizes news by topic and publication date.
So what makes Newser different from others like Google or Yahoo? The answer: Humans. Instead of using “spiders” or “crawlers” built off of algorithms to gather information from the web, an entire staff has been hired to contribute to content found on Newser.com.
“Nobody is really aggregating news in a meaningful way,” said Spain, 55, who ran and sold business-information service Hoovers.com. “Google in a robotic way [aggregates stories] from hundreds of brands and sources. But it doesn’t have any editorial zest.”
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