By Michael Torrice
Feed.com is the Wal-Mart for world news. As the name suggests, it
serves as a feed of world news, covering a myriad of topics. The front
page starts with headlines from various major news sources (CNN, ABC
News, Fox News, etc.). It also breaks down some news headlines by
department (entertainment, sports, business, etc.). But what is most
attractive of the Feed.com site are the links to associated sites
across the world. Using a clickable map of the world, the user can
go to affiliated sites in Europe, North America, South America, Asia,
Africa, Australia, and the Middle East. There are also several other
links to sites dealing with more specific world locales, like Scandinavia,
Central America, the Caribbean, and the various polar regions across
the globe. These sites serve as a newspaper for the geographic locale's
major news stories. Along with the major headlines, these sites also
link to the major news sources in the locale. All of these sites can
be shown in many world languages thus making Feed.com accessible to
many people across the world.
The web environment created by Feed.com is one of true globalization.
Its method of news "broadcasting" is perfectly suited to
the media of the Internet. While sites like CNN.com and other TV broadcaster's
web sites still use the method of centralized news gathering, where
reporters are sent out to bring back news stories, Feed.com uses,
what could be called, a decentralized approach. By creating sites
devoted to the various geographic areas of the world, Feed.com need
only link up to them and then allow these sites to gather the news
they deem to be important to their locale. In this way Feed.com allows
users to access more information about the world with less leg work.
Since a site, like CNN.com, has a limited number of reporters, it
can only devout time to the stories it deems important to the whole
world. At Feed.com, users get access to stories that may only be important
to specific regions or specific groups of the world because Feed.com
is really several individual CNN.com's each working on a specific
area. In this manner, Feed.com is a truly interesting model of how
the Internet can change news distribution. It also reemphasizes how
the progression of the Internet will lead to a more informed individual.
As with many other news sites, Feed.com could also be improved. While
Feed.com does not suffer from a lack of many views of the news stories
of the day, it suffers from, at times, information overload. With
as many sites contributing to the news experience as Feed.com has,
what is needed is some way for the user to filter out what they do
not wish to view. A sort of customizable start page would be best
in this regard. Allowing people to select which sites to summarize
on the front page will allow users to streamline their news gathering
process. While Feed.com does allow for unbelievable awareness of world
affairs, it must be careful not to drown its users in information.