Personalised News On The Net
Cable News Network was set to announce a joint venture with Oracle, the database software company, to create an advanced personalised news service on the Internet. The CNN service will be the most sophisticated of its kind, providing users with text, graphics and video news reports according to their individual interests.
The launch marks the entry of one of the worlds leading news-gathering organisations into personalised news. To date, most such services are focused on business news or more narrowly on news from the computer industry.
Personalised news services are designed to avoid the problems of information overload that many internet users suffer by filtering news reports into special interest categories.
Most existing services select articles of interest using key-word search systems, which are prone to error. It is difficult, for example, to distinguish between articles about soccer and football, since football is a different sport in some parts of the world.
The Oracle technology, in contrast, uses linguistic analysis to identify themes and topics among the hundreds of news stories filed by CNN journalists every day.
Intelligent agents search for news using over 200,000 concepts or topics to ensure that every relevant article is found. A similar approach is used by Individual, one of the current leaders in internet customised news services, which focuses primarily on business news. The CNN service is distinguished by the breadth and magnitude of its news sources, as well as by its ability to deliver news to the desktop, said Ms Beatriz Infante, Oracle senior vice-president of internet and media products. Details of users news preferences will be stored on central servers, rather than on individuals PCs, so users will be able to access their personalised news services from any computer. The CNN interactive service will be aimed at consumers and will include world news, sports and weather as well as business news. Users will, for example, be able to obtain weather reports from more than 3,600 cities. Personalised news services are attractive to a advertisers, because they can direct advertisements to people who have
expressed interest in a particular topic. As part of the CNN-Oracle joint venture, Oracle will share in the advertising revenues raised by the CNN internet service. Copyright Financial Times Limited 1997. All Rights Reserved.