May 1, 2006

A New Look at Personalized News

Michael Arrington

64 comments »

Israeli startup Spotback, which I’ve been tracking for a while, will launch tonight (Monday) at 10 PM PST. Spotback is a personalized news portal that learns from user behavior over time to deliver the news that’s just right for them.

Web 2.0 news sites usually fall into one of two categories. Sites like Digg and Newsvine take user feedback and actions to affect what the entire community sees. Personalized sites like Findory change what they present to a single user based on his or her actions over time. Spotback falls into the latter category - a personalized news site that changes for each user over time based on what they like and don’t like (although they also have a Top Stories tab with the most highly rated news from all users).

Each news item on Spotback can be rated by a user, saved, and/or emailed to others (click on image to right for larger view). Users may comment on any story. The source of the news item can also be marked, to tell Spotback to include more news like this, or to block items like it (or from that source). Finally, users can also customize the page to include whatever news categories they like (business, sports, etc.) or an RSS reader widget, which allows a user to add any news source that may not already be included in the Spotback index.

Here’s what I like best about Spotback - there is no requirement to set up a user account, you can simply access the site (personalized via cookie) if you choose to. If you do create a user account, you can rate other users and receive personalized news based on what they like and dislike, too.

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Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

  1. NCN BetaZone » Spotback
  2. Library clips
  3. Ellis Web » Spotback Review
  4. Ellis Web » Items of Interest: 2006.05.02
  5. Anonymous
  6. The American Moderate Blog » Blog Archive » Spotback Personalized News
  7. » Spotback - A New Look at Personalized news
  8. Behavior-based News at Nerve Endings Firing Away
  9. Customization in the Internet economy » Blog Archive » Spotback, a new place to personalize news
  10. Spotback: A New Look At Personalized News at SynaptiX
  11. Mashable*
  12. Personalized info from Spotback - Fosfor
  13. El Ruso » Spotback, a learning news aggregator
  14. WXM » Spotback - A New Look at Personalized news
  15. Spotback offers personalized news | Gadgetell - The Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things Blog
  16. TechCrunch » Blog Archive » Zlango’s Icon-based Language for SMS
  17. Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Spotback startpage gets even better
  18. TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Spotback、パーソナルニュースサイトさらに充実
  19. accelzone techie weblog » Spotback news site gets even better
  20. The American Moderate Blog » Blog Archive » Spotback and Newsvine Personalized News
  21. Tech Industry » Spotback - A New Look at Personalized news
  22. Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Web Swamii Provides Online Guidance
  23. Web Swamii Provides Online Guidance at Swiss Podcast Directory and Blog
  24. Web Swamii Provides Online Guidance » JenIT
  25. Web Swamii Provides Online Guidance
  26. Spotback Launches Their “Rate Everything” Widget
  27. Just a random blog !
  28. Revver Founder Launches Thoof: Personalized News Service
  29. Revver Founder Launches Thoof: Personalized News Service : Forecast-Blog

Comments

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  1. Wannabeleader

    Ugh, it has no name recognition. If you want to build a name within the news industry, ya need a name.

  2. Russell Limprecht

    I want to try this. I loved the way SearchFox learned my reading habits then put those articles at the top of my list.

  3. Kevin Burton

    Pretty UI for sure……

    Super web 2.0 :)

    I think the jury is still out on whether this implicit (and hidden) tuning is right for all users.

    My *gut* say isn’t right for the mainstream user.

    Products like Tailrank allow the user to have more control over their personalization while at the same time supporting implicit tuning.

    I could enable this in Tailrank if I wanted but I just don’t see it as a big win.

    Of course I’ve been wrong before… :)

    Thoughts?

  4. Calvin

    Didn’t Claria announce something similar a couple of weeks ago? http://www.personalweb.com.

    You download, it spies, it learns, you get personalized content.

    I like this approach much better.

  5. Saul Weiner

    Man, this is a a great site. Only problem is that the space is tough. Getting mindshare will be difficult where the services don’t provide a lot of differentiated value from one another.

  6. Don Wilson

    Don’t care for the UI, lots of features I wouldn’t need.

    The only thing that’s cool with that is the little baloon thing at the top.

  7. Pete Cashmore

    I can’t help noticing that the top story on that screenshot is titled: “what do you think about the vagina?”. Amusingly, you seem to have clicked it! :)

  8. Ted

    I like this because it passes the “mom” test (as in, could my mom use it), which I think is very important when it comes to news sites. If you get a chance, Mike, you ought to do some research on people who consume their news online, where they go, and what they like.

    And Pete, who wouldn’t click that?

  9. Decipho

    I like the fact that you don’t need to sign up for an account to use the site. Interested in using this site.

  10. Vaibhav Domkundwar

    Cool UI, indeed. If they reduced the numbers of small icons under each item, it will be cleaner. I like the one column view much better.

    The personalization part will be more evident with more usage and I’ll be looking forward to the results. It will be awesome if they allow me to prefine a few topics so I don’t have to wait until the system learns.

  11. Paul

    This is pretty incredible. It has tonnes of features…and doesn’t appear in the slightest buggy.

    So many new services come along, that just do not arouse my interest — but this I’ll actually look into a bit more.

  12. Yaakov

    You cite Newsvine as a site that takes user feedback to affect the entire community. Although this is true on a general level (ie: pushing posts and seeds “up the vine” to main topic pages) they have also introduced a feature called Recommended Articles. This feature takes the articles that you have approved, and displays a list of articles that you have not yet seen that were approved by other Newsvine users who have similar taste to you. So they do offer something in the realm of personal recommendations.

  13. Paul

    OK, I have a verdict: I love the site. I’ve discovered a lot of news.

    There’s just one drawback: lack of a community, as of yet.

  14. Entertainer

    I have been one of the beta testers for a while. These guys create great service. very intutitive and are very responsive to user feedback. I am thinking of making this my homepage instead of my.yahoo.com

  15. charbar

    This is really great! Seems that the more users are joining the system, there more interesting it gets. I’ve also been beta testing it, but now it’s really become relevant.

  16. elwir

    well site is ok, good job with asp but you said that it works with cookies so one does not have to register to personalize the hopepage, let me tell you my story. i did remove the stuff i`m not itnerested in, like woman, children, etc. and added more news on webdevelopment, business IT etc. then deciced to sort news in one columnt instead of two columns which comes default. one you set one column page it becomes two one-columned pages. and when u switch from one page to another you see that all your changes are gone and it has applied its default settings. in my case all news about woman, children, etc. were back on my pages and none of my additions like web development were there anymore.
    so my israeli friends, work harder…

  17. charbar

    Why whould you want to get rid of the women section elwir :-D

  18. Eric Cogan

    I really like the way registration is handled. Might try that on my site.

  19. Bob

    It looks very nice, but the personalization doesn’t seem to work right. Oh well.

  20. giffo

    damn they beat my little ass to release, i can’t give up been working on the algorithms for the past flipping year

  21. Seth

    Another great installment by the Israeli fellows.

  22. Matt

    Pretty nice little site. Not good enough to make me want to switch from NetVibes though.

  23. Luke

    Like a dumb bonde, pretty on the outside but really quite shallow inside.

    Not to be fooled and give them Two thumbs down…

  24. Web two point oh

    Kevin Burton - please don’t try and steal spotbacks ’spotlight’ by whoring tailrank again, it’s getting a bit much!

    Good job anyway, Spotback has blew my stereotype away of ugly and ropey development often associated with Asian type developers

  25. Steve

    180n.com does this personalization without having to log in, but goes the social aspect of what people think is important news.

  26. Luke

    Ya, I got suckered to try it, I saw, It sucked…

  27. Paul

    Steve, you do not have to log in…

  28. sainathkm

    TAAZZA is comming.. Will be launched within this month !! HOpe that give Spotback a BANG !!

  29. Steve

    Paul, sorry, I knew that… I meant to write a ‘too’ in my post. LOL

  30. Jonny

    Doesn’t work in Opera…the loading icon spins endlessly.

  31. Micha

    Opera is now supported (make sure your Opera browser does not identify as another type of browser). Thanks.

  32. elwir

    charbar, i just wanted to personalize it :) dont think ii dont like women:) well i’m a college student, i can say i like girls instead of woman:)

  33. Anon

    awful interface - too much colour. Mutton dressed up as lamb…

  34. Rachel

    You should also check out ifbyphone at http://ifbyphone.com, a personalized voice portal that offers news in addition to weather, sports, blogs, chat, a social network called Voplace, stocks, wake-up and reminder calls, notepad, games etc. On ifbyphone you can personalize your news search based on keywords, select different new feeds from a predefined list, or add your own feeds.

  35. Plugg music blog

    Spotback rules.
    I don’t understand why everyone in the world is a member, it’s my only news source and has been for quite a while now.