Going online is walking into the unknown: flicking through a feed, trying to find out what’s worth paying attention to in your inbox, or parsing between search results. One of the main problems is that you don’t really know what you are clicking on when you click on it. It’s a bit like a box of chocolates, or less charmingly, a stream of different things coming at you (nsfw), a “forest of content” that you need to navigate.
Part of Overtone’s mission is to provide information about what is *in* an article, so that people and businesses can set their expectations and deal with a given piece the way they want to. It’s a bit like a map for that forest of content. Otherwise you don’t really know whether the link you are clicking on is what you want to spend time on.
This is also the case for outlets that are generally considered to provide good quality. The New York Times has traditionally been America’s newspaper of record and publishes some great pieces. But it puts out hundreds of articles every day, from recipes to live blogs to opinion to investigations, and all of these pieces are doing different things. We picked a recent week (end of March, beginning of April), searched through several hundred NYT articles that touch on or mention the broad topic of “business,” and scored them to see how a completely randomised selection of what they are offering compares to a list organised by Overtone.
Randomised
We can start off by looking at what a random selection of 10 New York Times articles for the period would look like without their attached scores. They all popped up in our search, and they all come from the same newspaper, but we don't really know what’s inside. There are in-depth pieces like the Nebraska unemployment one at the end of the list, a live blog on the Grammys, a list of TV recommendations and other types of articles that differ pretty wildly in terms of what they are offering.
Clicking on the “LGBT Romance is Booming” link for instance, we’re treated to a feature that includes interviews with authors and editors in the publishing industry (those are the sort of reporting signals that give it ★★★★★ as you’ll see below). We might then, in the spirit of that interest in books, click on the “Should Libraries Get Rid of Late Fees?” link, expecting to find a similar article about local librarians. That might disappoint us, however, because the article is actually from the “Student Opinion” section and asks readers to send in their thoughts on another story. The Libraries link was a ★★ and there is nothing wrong with that at all, but it may not be what we wanted. Of course, if we want a narrative piece about the Grammys we can click on the first piece, or for a live blog of little snippets about it, there’s another link further down. But we know very little beforehand. That’s where we hope Overtone can help: offering more information before you click.
Randomised List
Delayed by Virus, Grammy Awards Celebrate Music Industry’s Return
‘I Just Want Something That’s Gay and Happy’: L.G.B.T.Q. Romance Is Booming
What’s on TV This Week: A Pair of New Docs, and ‘Killing Eve’
Wall Street’s Rigid Culture Bends to Demands for Flexibility at Work
Key Moments From the Grammys: Jon Batiste, Silk Sonic and Olivia Rodrigo Triumph
‘I’m in Hot Demand, Baby’: Nebraska Thrives (and Copes) With Low Unemployment
Organised by Overtone
With Overtone’s technology we can let an algorithm “read” the articles when they are published, meaning that if I am a newspaper’s audience engagement editor I can sort different sorts of articles into different places. Editors can currently sort and make decisions on things like the number of clicks and shares an article is receiving, but in order to have that data people need to be clicking and sharing. If you focus on the text itself the data is available immediately. That audience engagement editor could send specific 5s or 4s about business or sports or politics to people who like 5s or 4s about business or sports or politics. An editor could even create a newsletter with the exact same articles as above, but with more information to set expectations.
In the list below the people who want to read the in-depth Nebraska or LGBTQ books pieces will know what they are diving into, where less substantive narrative articles like the live blog or library late fees question have been put in the Odds and Ends section. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them, but people would know what sort of link they are clicking.
Example Organised List
We know that you like NYT’s in-depth journalism, so here are a few that our reporters worked on this week. Make sure you find time for these!
‘I’m in Hot Demand, Baby’: Nebraska Thrives (and Copes) With Low Unemployment ★★★★★
‘I Just Want Something That’s Gay and Happy’: L.G.B.T.Q. Romance Is Booming ★★★★★
More news for you
Delayed by Virus, Grammy Awards Celebrate Music Industry’s Return ★★★★
Wall Street’s Rigid Culture Bends to Demands for Flexibility at Work ★★★★
Judge Keeps New York’s New Electoral Map Intact for Now ★★★★
Odds and ends
What’s on TV This Week: A Pair of New Docs, and ‘Killing Eve’ ★★★
Key Moments From the Grammys: Jon Batiste, Silk Sonic and Olivia Rodrigo Triumph ★
Just the 5s
You can also sort through your own catalogue of articles and group pieces that are similar (journalism-wise, not in terms of topic) together. Below is a randomised collection of ★★★★★ from the same sample of New York Times articles in late March and early April.
‘Fighting Was Easier’: Taliban Take On a Treacherous, Avalanche-Prone Pass
★★★★★He Quietly Turned Bank of America Around. Can He Do More?
★★★★★She Took the White House Photos. Trump Moved to Take the Profit
★★★★★In Germany, Union Culture Clashes With Amazon’s Labor Practices
★★★★★The Problem of ‘Personal Precedents’ of Supreme Court Justices
★★★★★U.S. to jury in 1MDB trial: Convict even if you don’t believe our star witness.
★★★★★Soaring Cost of Diesel Ripples Through the Global Economy
★★★★★Can A.I.-Driven Voice Analysis Help Identify Mental Disorders?
★★★★★Perfecting Neapolitan Pizza in Los Angeles, With Help From Tokyo
★★★★★