Nerikes Allehanda a role model for newspapers’ use of RSS

More Swedish newspapers are adding RSS feeds to their online editions. Linköpings Tidning announced a new feed yesterday at http://www.linkopingstidning.se/rssfeed. An even more innovative approach comes from another local daily, namely Nerikes Allehanda. They have introduced an application that lets you choose what news you want and then create your own news feed. For example, if I am only interested in soccer and news from the city of Karlskoga I can just click those boxes and the application creates a feed which combines the two sub feeds (http://na.se/rss/rss.asp?a=7&s;=2). Or I could subscribe to several feeds in my news reader.

Very nice work and intelligent in many ways, not just because it lets readers decide on what news are important to them. It is also a change of attitude, a willingness to acknowledge that the gatekeeper role where media pick and choose what news you should consume, take it or leave it, that role is not relevant anymore. Media consumers today have a wide range of choices when it comes to searching, selecting and consuming information. The news business is becoming more of a conversation than a lecture, to use the words of journalism professor Jay Rosen. The shift in the balance of power from media producers to media consumers means that content providers who stay in the “lecture model” may get abandoned by readers who want to “roll their own” media. If media consumers require a smorgasbord of news, you can’t serve just one dish.

Also see my extensive list of some 220 Nordic media RSS feeds here.