Final Post

            Never in my life had I come up with an idea that I thought I could actually pursue. I have always been in love with journalism. The news media fascinates me and the shift of newspapers to the web is what drove to start learning IST. In the crossing between journalism and IST I found this idea, and it has since fascinated me.

            Whoever denies that the newspaper business is in a precarious state is dead wrong. Countless newspapers have gone under because they have been forced to the web to survive, but once there have found it impossibly hard to draw readers to their site and away form the overwhelming web-wide competition. Without the readers, they could make money off of advertisements and various newspapers became the first to crawl towards extinction, putting up a fight until bankruptcy claimed another victim.

            Myheadline.com could become a solution to the decline of newspaper readership. By creating a single site that could serve as a marketplace for newspapers and magazines, accessibility to the news media would be increased. This idea has already been explored by a number of aggregator sites such as feedbucket.com and alltop.com. These sites create a feed in which you could insert all types of sites, with the intention of creating a constant news feed from various sources. However, this is only a weak jab at the possibilities that aggregating news sources could have.

            While my original idea was simply an aggregator site like so many others with a news feed from varied sources, I now realize what an impact a news-dedicated social media website could have. Myheadline.com will exceed the simple newsfeed. It will incorporate aspects of social media sites to facilitate the reading and sharing of a wide array of news stories. The idea is for people to create a user account, much like Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin accounts, that will allow the user to subscribe to a variety of local and national newspapers that will then appear in a single home. This will facilitate the user to browse through several sources of news simultaneously.

             The user will also be able to share stories they find interesting or important to fellow Myheadline.com users. Furthermore, the website will follow the type of stories the user finds interesting so that in the future stories of that type continue to appear in the users home page. This will be facilitated through a function called “highlighting,” in which users “highlight” the stories they find interesting.  The number of times a story gets “highlighted” by users is recorded so that stories can be ranked in importance and interest. Commenting on stories is also an option, so that users can engage on discussions about news stories.

            In short, it is wrong to say that Myheadline.com would facilitate the consumption of news. Myheadline.com would utterly revolutionize the way news is consumed in our society.