Newser
Encyclopedia
Newser is an online news site based in the United States
. It is the brain-child of journalist Michael Wolff
, an Internet pioneer, Vanity Fair
columnist, and author of the Rupert Murdoch
biography, The Man Who Owns the News. Launched in October 2007, Newser is a web-native news site, seeking to speak to the new online news behavior—the need to survey multiple news brands—and to combine the machine search capabilities used in sites like Google News and Yahoo News with the newsroom oversight of traditional news organizations. Searching hundreds of news sites, Newser’s goal is to provide an efficient and entertaining one-stop shop for headlines and news summaries throughout the day. Newser has pioneered a summary form which compresses traditional, often repetitive, news exposition into a more stream-lined, compact, fact-oriented form tailored to web browsing. Newser marries these short takes to photographs and relevant videos.
In 2010, Newser launched a user-participation application, opening its publishing system to any user who wants to post a story. In July 2010, Newser was recognized as one of the “2010 Hottest Companies in the Midwest” by Lead411.
, the founder of Hoovers, and now the CEO of HighBeam Research
, Inc., a Nexis-like news database company. With Caroline Miller, the former editor-in-chief of New York, as editor, the trio launched Newser as a division of Highbeam. The company split from HighBeam in December 2008 after the latter was sold to educational publisher Gale
, with Spain becoming Newser’s CEO. John Filut has been the general manager of the site since its launch.
Early on, most of Newser’s sources were mainstream news organizations, but in its more than two years of operation, Newser’s focus has increasingly shifted to native online sources—many of which are now partnering with the company.
In September 2008, Wolff began writing a daily column for the site.
replacing Spain as CEO.
A user can customize the grid to show either hard or soft news. Hard news focuses on financial, political, and world events, while soft news shows stories about arts and living, gossip, and movie news. Furthermore, a user can choose how many stories he or she wants to see on the grid, ranging from 9 stories to 42, by using the slider under "Customize Page".
The grid was created because Newser believes that the world wide web
is best experienced visually. The inspiration for the grid comes from the popular TV game show, Hollywood Squares
. Newser's home page blends the three main ways that news is delivered on the Web: top down traditional editorial (e.g., The New York Times
and CNN
), machine aggregated (e.g., Google News
) and user recommended news (e.g., NewsVine
and Digg
).
At the beginning of 2010, Newser began slowly rolling out their user-generated feature, Newser by Users (NBU). The feature allows anyone to post a story to the User Grid, helping Newser select the news they cover. Occasionally, Newser will promote user stories to the main grid. The feature officially launched on March 16, 2010. Newser began offering cash prizes for submissions in October 2010.
Off The Grid features daily opinion articles by founder Michael Wolff and other Newser writers and editors. Off The Grid articles illustrate the story behind the news. They often link multiple Newser stories together with a common theme.
’s Stephen J. Dubner
, co-author of Freakonomics
, said the site “looks like one of the best I’ve seen.” PaidContent.org wrote that the site “helps in efficient news consumption.”
However, Gawker.com
has not been too positive about the site, and Jeff Bercovici, formerly of Portfolio
magazine has been critical of Newser founder Michael Wolff.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It is the brain-child of journalist Michael Wolff
Michael Wolff (journalist)
Michael Wolff is an American author, essayist, and journalist. He currently writes a regular column for Vanity Fair magazine. He is well known for his acerbic, combative, and humorous style...
, an Internet pioneer, Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
columnist, and author of the Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
biography, The Man Who Owns the News. Launched in October 2007, Newser is a web-native news site, seeking to speak to the new online news behavior—the need to survey multiple news brands—and to combine the machine search capabilities used in sites like Google News and Yahoo News with the newsroom oversight of traditional news organizations. Searching hundreds of news sites, Newser’s goal is to provide an efficient and entertaining one-stop shop for headlines and news summaries throughout the day. Newser has pioneered a summary form which compresses traditional, often repetitive, news exposition into a more stream-lined, compact, fact-oriented form tailored to web browsing. Newser marries these short takes to photographs and relevant videos.
In 2010, Newser launched a user-participation application, opening its publishing system to any user who wants to post a story. In July 2010, Newser was recognized as one of the “2010 Hottest Companies in the Midwest” by Lead411.
Background
In early 2007, the media writer Michael Wolff, realizing that the news business was rapidly moving from newspapers and television, brought his idea of a native news site to Patrick SpainPatrick Spain
Patrick J. Spain is the co-founder of Hoover's, founder of HighBeam Research and is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of news curation site Newser....
, the founder of Hoovers, and now the CEO of HighBeam Research
HighBeam Research
HighBeam Research is a paid search engine owned by Cengage Learning for newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines and encyclopedias...
, Inc., a Nexis-like news database company. With Caroline Miller, the former editor-in-chief of New York, as editor, the trio launched Newser as a division of Highbeam. The company split from HighBeam in December 2008 after the latter was sold to educational publisher Gale
Gale (publisher)
Gale is an educational publishing company based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, the United States, in the western suburbs of Detroit. It was part of the Thomson Learning division of the Thomson Corporation, a Canadian company, but became part of Cengage Learning in 2007.The company, formerly known...
, with Spain becoming Newser’s CEO. John Filut has been the general manager of the site since its launch.
Early on, most of Newser’s sources were mainstream news organizations, but in its more than two years of operation, Newser’s focus has increasingly shifted to native online sources—many of which are now partnering with the company.
In September 2008, Wolff began writing a daily column for the site.
Changing leadership
Founding editor-in-chief, Caroline Miller, left the organization at the end of August 2010. Michael Wolff was named editorial director of AdweekMedia on October 4, 2010. Patrick Spain stepped down as CEO on October 18, 2010. John Filut remains the general manager with Elisabeth DeMarseElisabeth DeMarse
Elisabeth DeMarse has been an accomplished leader in digital media throughout her technology career and was a female CEO of a public company when few had, and still have, achieved that status.-Early Life And Education:...
replacing Spain as CEO.
Design
Newser uses a grid that displays multiple stories and allows a user to scroll over each news item for a quick summary. From there, the user can click to read the news summary or read the full news story from the source.A user can customize the grid to show either hard or soft news. Hard news focuses on financial, political, and world events, while soft news shows stories about arts and living, gossip, and movie news. Furthermore, a user can choose how many stories he or she wants to see on the grid, ranging from 9 stories to 42, by using the slider under "Customize Page".
The grid was created because Newser believes that the world wide web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
is best experienced visually. The inspiration for the grid comes from the popular TV game show, Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares is an American panel game show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. The "board" for the game is a 3 × 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk and facing the contestants...
. Newser's home page blends the three main ways that news is delivered on the Web: top down traditional editorial (e.g., The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
), machine aggregated (e.g., Google News
Google News
Google News is a free news aggregator provided by Google Inc, selecting recent items from thousands of publications by an automatic aggregation algorithm....
) and user recommended news (e.g., NewsVine
Newsvine
Newsvine is a community-powered, collaborative journalism news website, owned by msnbc.com, which draws content from its users and syndicated content from mainstream sources such as The Associated Press...
and Digg
Digg
Digg is a social news website. Prior to Digg v4, its cornerstone function consisted of letting people vote stories up or down, called digging and burying, respectively. Digg's popularity prompted the creation of copycat social networking sites with story submission and voting systems...
).
Features
Newser is an interactive site. Users can post comments about all stories.At the beginning of 2010, Newser began slowly rolling out their user-generated feature, Newser by Users (NBU). The feature allows anyone to post a story to the User Grid, helping Newser select the news they cover. Occasionally, Newser will promote user stories to the main grid. The feature officially launched on March 16, 2010. Newser began offering cash prizes for submissions in October 2010.
Off The Grid features daily opinion articles by founder Michael Wolff and other Newser writers and editors. Off The Grid articles illustrate the story behind the news. They often link multiple Newser stories together with a common theme.
Reception
Newser has been the topic of extensive commentary, mainly because the site is a radical departure from typical news sites. The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
’s Stephen J. Dubner
Stephen J. Dubner
Stephen J. Dubner is an American journalist who has written four books and numerous articles. Dubner is best known as co-author of the pop-economics book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything and its 2009 sequel, SuperFreakonomics.-Background:His parents were...
, co-author of Freakonomics
Freakonomics
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything is a 2005 non-fiction book by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner. The book has been described as melding pop culture with economics, but has also been described as...
, said the site “looks like one of the best I’ve seen.” PaidContent.org wrote that the site “helps in efficient news consumption.”
However, Gawker.com
Gawker.com
Gawker is a newsmagazine/blog based in New York City that bills itself as "the source for daily Manhattan media news and gossip" and focuses on celebrities and the media industry....
has not been too positive about the site, and Jeff Bercovici, formerly of Portfolio
Condé Nast Portfolio
Portfolio.com is a website published by American City Business Journals that provides news and information for small to mid-sized businesses. It was formerly the website for the monthly business magazine Condé Nast Portfolio, published by Condé Nast from 2007 to 2009.Portfolio.com is continually...
magazine has been critical of Newser founder Michael Wolff.