And in an age of information overload, the challenge for journalists is no longer just to provide more news content. Rather, our value lies in supporting relevance, insight, and (ultimately) meaning.

This is why, lately, I’ve been intrigued by Silobreaker. This Europe-based news aggregator site uses semantic web technology (Including visual interfaces) to make news more relevant — and thus, more compelling and useful.

This is pretty important because, since relevance has inherent value, it can be the basis of business models…

WHAT’S THE SEMANTIC WEB, AND WHY SHOULD JOURNOS CARE?

The semantic web is a set of technologies that help computers interpret meaning more like how humans do it. This can make various computer technologies (especially search) far more efficient and effective. It makes it easier for computers to get to the point in ways that people understand and value.

As this semantic web tutorial explains:

“The semantic web is not about links between web pages. It describes relationships between things (like A is a part of B, and Y is a member of Z) and the properties of things (like size, weight, age, and price).”

…Apply that logic to news, and you approach what most news consumers try to do, with varying degrees of success, in their own heads. News consumers constantly try to create meaning by “connecting the dots” between a dizzying array of often-conflicting stories from a multitude of venues — and then relate those patterns to their own lives and interests.

They do this in order to form opinions and make decisions — which from their perspective is the whole point of news!

WARNING: SILOBREAKER IS REALLY GEEKY

I’ll tell you up front: Silobreaker is geeky. Its user interface can be confusing and frustrating. It’s often not easy to understand what the site is saying, or why.

That said, it’s still well worth exploring — mainly because of its search tools. These visually portray the potential relevance of current news topics. This can prove valuable to journalists, as well as to analysts and regular people.

For instance, let’s say I’m a Hispanic parent who cares about my children’s future prospects — so I’m very interested in education, and what educational opportunities or pitfalls may affect my kids. I start my Silobreaker exploration of this topic by conducting a “360-degree search” for stories that connect these topics: Hispanics and education. This provides a fairly conventional news aggregator-style overview of air pollution-related news, superficially not too different from what you’d get from Google News.

But for more insight into what’s happening in this field, I glance at the right-hand sidebar. In the top chart there, “article volume,” I see that starting in early October coverage of this intersection of topics picked up sharply, but has since subsided somewhat (although not completely). This clues me in that this field heated up for a bit. That’s useful context if I haven’t been monitoring this field regularly.

Scrolling down further in the right sidebar, I see a box for “network search.” I double-click that box to display a large diagram showing how the issues I named, plus many others selected by Silobreaker as relevant, currently relate to each other in detail.

The network view allows me to literally see how issues connect. The value of this is serendipity potential. I notice that one of the related topics is “higher education” — and I have two teenagers, so that gets my attention.

I double-click the “higher education” node to make it the focus of this diagram. The resulting diagram shows me how topics, companies, people, organizations, and places currently relate to each other in this complex field. More importantly, clicking on a blue dot on any connecting line tells me why Silobreaker thinks those issues are connected (articles, blog posts, etc.)

I find the network search especially fascinating — even though, to be honest, I’m not quite clear on how it works or what it’s telling me. But I do know that it has helped me to better understand interrelationships and how they evolve — something that’s hard to get at just by reading conventional news stories. So it’s well worth spending a few minutes clicking on topics and playing with the sliders in Silobreaker’s network view. Allow the diagram to rearrange itself around your selections. See if you spot interesting relationships you hadn’t noticed before.

SO WHAT?

Silobreaker offers the most obvious potential for people who need news. But for news professionals, still greater value lies here in being able to spot possible stories and angles before they become obvious. If you know what interests your community, and can express that in keywords or topics, then Silobreaker can show you what’s happening now that might be relevant.

This kind of tool can help create and shape stories, as well as tell them.

Silobreaker offers other visually interesting tools worth exploring. Each offers some advantages and frustrations. Expect clunkiness and confusion, but also some Aha! moments. Think of this site as an early prototype for a news business based on relevance. Where could we go from here?

(NOTE: I originally published an earlier version of this article on Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.)

nutrition-facts

What if you could read the label on news stories, to gauge quality and relevance? (Source: Keetsa, via Flickr, CC license)

I’m not talking about marketing news brands. I’m talking about marketing the merits of each story, right in the story.

Erin Kissane offers sage advice for writing product pages that I suspect could, with a twist, also make it easier for people (and search engines, and the semantic web) to grasp the value of quality news:

“Most product pages need to answer these questions:

1. Who is the product for?
2. What is the product?
3. What does the product do for its target user?
4. Why is the product better than the available alternatives?

“Stupidly simple, right? But the lack of answers to these questions is what leads to thousands upon thousands of wasted hours (and more money than I want to think about) spent writing, serving, and reading meaningless dreck that doesn’t inform users, promote products, or help anyone.”

Now: What if news stories included similar context? At least through some sort of categorization or tagging on the back-end. That could enhance relevance in search results, semantic web applications, or site features like optional pop-up boxes or an iGoogle-like personalized news interface.

That revised list might look like this…

1. Who is this news for? Communities or demographics most likely to be interested or involved.
2. What kind of coverage is this? Breaking news, update, alert, feature, interview, event report, data, analysis, backgrounder, info graphic, timeline, fact box, photo, commentary, how-to, topic introduction, etc. Most news venues already address this to some extent by section heads, but that’s usually more about topic than type of content.
3. How might this news help its target audiences? I’m not exactly sure how to best handle this, but example benefits might include civic empowerment and government oversight, personal financial stability, understanding the local economy, personal and public safety, knowing your neighbors, etc. (Help me think this through, what are your ideas on this one?)
4. Why is this news better than available alternatives? Here’s where being transparent about journalistic processes and expertise can really shine as a selling point — crucial in an age where most people have easy access to multiple news sources for coverage of virtually anything. What about “Reporter has 15 years covering education issues, including three years in this city.” Or: “All facts verified and/or corroborated.” Or: “This reporter is not affiliated with this issue or any related organizations.” Or: “Highlights Native American community impacts and perspective.” Or: “Eighth report on this unfolding story.”

These kinds of things often get discussed in a newsroom when planning coverage and writing/editing a story — but communities also would find this context useful, I think. It strikes me that news stories often assume either that people are able and willing to read between the lines to figure out this stuff out, or that they don’t really care about it. But in fact, these criteria help define relevance. Spelling them out could save people time and uncertainty. And: In an era of information overload, obvious relevance (not content) rules.

Clarifying relevance and quality context for each story (at least on the back end, but possibly also directly presenting it to communities) might help demonstrate the value of quality coverage. That’s not something that news orgs, communities, or individuals can afford to keep taking for granted.

Right now, I’m unclear how exactly search engines might use this information. I’ll investigate that further. So I’m thinking in the near term it might actually make sense for news providers or aggregators to either provide direct access to this information, where available, from stories. Or they could create personalizable interfaces (highlight stories related to local schools), or integrate it into site search (so you could, say, easily find backgrounders on a particular topic).

But in the long run, I suspect that adding this kind of context, in the form of metadata, might be very useful indeed to semantic web applications that relate concepts and context. Once we get beyond facile keywords and categories, there are many layers to what makes news useful. The semantic web might be the key to everyone — including journalists — getting more value out of quality news.