Fwix launching its hyperlocal news service in the UK

The local newswire service Fwix is launching in the UK.

The news aggregator site which already runs 80 city ventures in the United States aims at opening up news feeds to local bloggers and hyper news organisations which can replace the declining local newspaper market.

Its founder Darian Shirazi told Paid Content that

he’s already identified an average of 45 local blogs and news sources for each UK city feed and he’s willing to share ad revenue with each of them…

AP is strategically flawed says Paul Bradshaw

For a great synopsis of the arguments over AP's announcement that it will be declaring war on what is sees as illegal content,take a look at Paul Bradshaw's blog

The tanks are massing at the borders. The officers are drawing up “rules of engagement”. Soldiers are “rattling their sabres”. When times are hard, empires go to war. And so in the coming months we can expect to see “the web’s news cop” The Associated Press ignore the lessons of history and declare war against their perceived enemies.

he writes whilst pointing out that it is so strategically flawed.

AP are relatively unusual in that they are a news organisation which does actually make money from content.
The AP’s member organisations, however, make money primarily from advertising. To sell advertising you need an audience, and to get an audience you need a distribution strategy.
Pursuing your distributors for alleged copyright infringement is not a distribution strategy.
It also contributes nothing new to any business model for news online.

Getting past the headline-the role of news aggregators in the business model

There is an interesting piece by Michael Learmonth and Nat Ives over at Newspaper Project.

It focuses on the aggregation of news concept and what it does to business models.

many sites aggregating other people's content can't deliver that much traffic, and some don't even try. What's more, a vast swath of readers couldn't care less about anything deeper than a headline, which is a problem for the nation's beleaguered journalistic institutions as they try to find a sustainable model for newsgathering on the web.

I particularly liked the comments of Jane Seagrave, senior VP-global product development at the Associated Press,who said

There are a lot of people who never want to know more than 'Six Killed in Iraq,so that the money spent -- to put reporters in place, to guarantee their security, in many cases to compensate their widows and orphans when they're killed in action -- is not offset by any actual income from the work."

If this is the case in our information savvy world,it could spell massive problems for journalism.What Jane is saying is that people no longer have a need for the detail.

FT launches a next generation news aggregator

I have just been checking out the latest digital initiative from the FT.

It is called Newssift and is essentially a news aggregator service.

Interesting though that the usual FT brand of pink is nowhere to be seen.

The site says that

Newssift streamlines the process of search and search refinement to help users become more informed. Moving beyond simple keyword search, Newssift offers search based on meaning, relationships and business themes. Content is aggregated and annotated by editors to ensure relevant and deep analysis of global business news. Newssift allows you to know before you go.

adding that it is

A next generation vertical search tool, searches are based on meaning and relationships, moving beyond traditional keyword search.

Give libraries a role in providing local news

With local and regional newspapers dropping like flies,so to speak,Steve Abram comes up with a decent solution.

What about making libraries the new seat of journalism he asks?

So, if you're in a public library and your town is potentially dependent on the McPaper or a major national (If the NYT survives), what could you do? Can you use RSS feeds to assemble a local news source from smaller independents? Can you surf the local blogs and aggregate? Would your town miss local news in print? or have they already gone 'e'?
Seems like an opportunity. You might even be able to hire some of the folks being put on the street by the big conglomerates as they lay off folks.

Ht-Martin Stabe

Aggregation the future?

Maybe being a news aggregator is the way to go in this industry.

I am following the example of media commentator and Guru Roy Greenslade who from tomorrow is running part of the daily comment that is sent to readers of Editorial Intelligence.

According to the blurb Editorial Intelligence or (EI)

helps you navigate through the millions of words expressed in the UK print and blogosphere every day with time saving summaries

So rather like RSS then? Well not exactly

We read hundreds of thousand of words of comment and opinion published each day in the UK in print and on blogs to bring our clients – by 9 am each weekday - a summary of all the arguments and opinion.

We’ve divided the Comment into ten categories:

All Comment summarised
Business & Finance
Environment
Human Rights, Law, Justice
Education
Health, Family & Welfare
UK & International Politics
Security & Defence
Culture, Media & Sport
Science and Technology
Clients receive only the summaries they need and can upgrade their subscriptions to receive more tailored searches. For example, if you want a summary of all Environment comment but also want to know exactly what has been said over the last six months on Carbon Footprints in particular, e.i will help you.

And of course there is a price.

Some sites already do this.I am eternally grateful to Politics Home which provides a listing of all the comment and analysis from the UK papers and the best of the blogosphere in political journalism.I am sure that if I search the internet I will find a similar service for other topics

Over in the States Newser provides a similar service.Its founder ,Michael Wolff,believes that

newspapers and traditional broadcast media will fall to an imminent death. So as a means feed the enormous demand for news he created the online news aggregation site

.

His site is slightly different in it is

set up in a visual grid format so that readers can see the day's happenings pass before their eyes. He describes it as a real-time visual for the day's events, a "kind of narrative through which you can literally watch the day go by."

But comparing himself to operations such as the Huffington Post or the Drudge report,the site is pure aggregation.Sites such as Politics home or the 1st Post over here also add their own content

The question is for EI is whether people will be prepared to pay for someone to be their RSS filter.Is there a value that can be put an automatic sifting of content into categories or is that part of the fun of switching on your machine in the morning?

Roy Greenslade certainly thinks so

The wealth and breadth of the available material is the reason that niche aggregations of the media are now so important.