Welcome to Newsodrome!

News.

For a long time it's been my habit to keep up-to-date with the news. Not the generic top-of-the-world, one-size-fits-all news you find in the large online newspapers, but the news that really matter to me.

At first it was only work-related news. I read news about my company and our product, the latest on my line of work, on people management, on the technological platform that we use, news about my CEO and so much more. Lately, in an "A-HA" moment, I started applying the same news gathering processes on my hobbies, my favorite musicians, authors, celebrities. Joy.

It's really great to see that more and more people contribute their opinions online. They put them in blogs, newsgroups and dedicated websites around the web for everyone to read. Some of these guys truly know what they're talking about and are also a pleasure to read! This means that if you have the time, and know how, you can find top-notch news on any topic on the Internet. Really everything.

I find reading these news both important and fun, even though my news gathering process is quite time consuming and the quality-to-noise ratio online can sometimes be abysmal, requiring a lot of sifting to find the really good stuff.

This also been a constant itch. With so many micro areas-of-interest each and every one of us has, and with so many potential news sources online, how does one find the most interesting articles to fit her unique taste?

When I discuss this issue with colleagues I find one of three common responses.

1. The "Unaware" - he doesn't realize that you can find great news on his specific, personal areas of interest. He settles instead on reading just the really generic news you find in the large online newspapers.
2. The "Casual Reader" - She visits a forum, blog or online magazine discussing her favorite topics, but misses out on interesting stories that appear in other online news-sources. She knows about different websites that discuss her other areas of interest, but can't find the time for the "footwork" required to visit all these different websites.
3. The "Newsoholic" - He reads dozens of blogs, several on each topic of interest. He gets good coverage, but constantly complains that he invests most of his reading-time sifting through less interesting stories in search of the really interesting stuff. When he returns from the weekend, he gets depressed by the amount of news that piles up in his news reader. (Myself, I am a "Newsoholic", but I preach on the amazing world of online journalism to the "Unaware", e.g. most of my acquaintances.)
   

So what might be the solution to these issues? how can the "Unaware" become aware of great pin-pointed content without being too tech-savvy? how can the "Casual reader" get a better coverage without much footwork? how can the "Newsoholic" get the same coverage with less clutter, focusing only on the most interesting news?

I believe we just might have an answer. We call it "Newsodrome" and I'll tell you more about it in our next blog post.