I’m pretty sure we were not the first to do this (although we had enough problems to feel like it was the first!). A lot of financial information sites already do this, because of the regulations around who can receive what information based on their status and location. And I think that the new model of hybrid journalism (which I write about here that is theorized by Mark Deuze and others (see the journal Journalism Practice) is a form of the recommendatory news experience that you’re talking about.

However, talking about this with my journalism students in our social media class yesterday, they, as students, consumers of news and producers (or ‘produsers’ as Deuze would call them) of their own blogs and magazines (The Music Magazine for example, and this Burnley football blog) were adamant that they wanted to read news that had been edited and selected by professional journalists, by editors, not the masses, not even their networks if their networks are not ‘newswork’ professionals.

So I agree with what you are saying, and believe that Twitter in some way is meeting that demand for recommended news events, and I think there will be many failed attempts at getting the sense of a contextualised and recommended news experience right, before we see how news will evolve online, Good thing of course is that you can fail quickly, and try again.

Alex

I think you hit the right spot about recommendation systems. We like what it does, but most people don’t feel the need to join it or make it better. Most people don’t edit Wikipedia pages or vote or submit items to Digg. They just look at the results.

Recommendations only work when it happens by magic, or automatically. Like how Google changes the index based on what position the links are that users click. Everyone is making Google better, but you don’t have to do anything for it except using it.

I want my news – partly – personalized, but I don’t know if it is worth going through the hassle of creating an account.

@Andy you’re right we should keep it positive. In something else I wrote later this morning I had already updated the sentence.

“The web is fragmenting, or maybe even better the web is everywhere. On your mobile phone, television, widgets, feeds, website, and more.”

Maybe the more positive spin – and the more pro-active way to see this is the website as we know it is spreading its roots.

I personally love the idea of web recommendations. I was tired to read film experts advices for instance. They didn’t knew what I like! So I am open to find new experts on the net that speak to me. These experts can be both people or systems. Subscribing (RSS feeds) to news and blogs of my own interest is changing how I update myself on news on the web. Other system like digg and deli.cio.us has not been of my interest so far, and dont think they will. They are more the public opinion aren’t they?

Like in the real world it all comes down to find right persons/systems to listen to. I have a feeling that we rely too much on our close friends and family. Many read the news papers and watch TV programs and movies as their friends recommend. Internet can give you new friends that perhaps match better and more worth to listen to.

I don’t see why news should be different from other recommendations, so yes. I would love to have ‘friends’ that help me to find interesting news. As long I respect them and feel I can trust them, they can be a god filter for me. That is what we need in the information age isn’t it?