Front Page 2.0: Building a front page-algorithm to support our journalistic mission - and business goals
Eirik H. Winsnes Development Editor, Aftenposten Legg inn noe om mission/journalistic Agenda:
1. Our challenge 2. Our Goals 3. Our Solution 4. Our Results 5. Q&A Factsheet: Schibsted and Aftenposten
● Newspapers, marketplaces and growth ● Largest subscription newspaper in Norway companies in more than 30 countries ● Newsroom of ca. 150 employees ● Owns the largest media houses in ● 250 000 subscribers in total Norway and Sweden, including ● 108 000 purely digital subscribers Aftenposten, Svenska Dagbladet, VG and Aftonbladet Legg inn noe om mission/journalistic
Our challenge Legg inn noe om mission/journalistic Every day, our goal is to serve hundreds of thousands of norwegians intelligent and accurate reporting that should help them participate in our democracy, and enable them to make informed decisions about their own life and their community. During a normal Aftenposten week...
2 20 VISITS VISITS
15 300 HEADLINES HEADLINES
1 15 ARTICLES READ ARTICLES READ
1. How do we create a more relevant front page that takes into account user frequency and preferences?
2. How do we make sure that we do not create filter bubbles or echo chambers, but instead builds an editorially guided algorithm, that is based on Aftenpostens profile and supports our journalistic mission?
Legg inn noe om mission/journalistic
Our goals We started out with both commercial, organizational and editorial goals
1. Create a more relevant and engaging product for our users, without creating “filter-bubbles” or “echo chambers”. 2. Build a product that better supports our business model of digital subscribers. 3. Make sure more of our users are exposed to a higher number of our best and most important stories. 4. Release a product that enables us to speed up product development and build completely new and enriching features. 5. Eliminate legacy-workflows. Legg inn noe om mission/journalistic
Our solution Editorial signals
User behaviour User behaviour and preferences and preferences
Step 1: Identify the user needs and business goals our frontpage should meet, and categorize and structure the content in order to meet those needs
Premium content - converts new What others are subscribers reading
Premium - for What happens? The width of our subscribers only content profile - surprise me!
120 Step 1.5: What content should we show to everyone - at the same time?
Shown to everyone who have not read it - somewhere
Shown to everyone - on top
Our current front page tool
121 Tool-on-top
Sector: 2 fresh news 1 well read 1 mix/width of content 1 top-selling 1 subs only Ordering done by algorithm
Put together and ordered by our algorithm
122 Data reflecting our editorial judgment is the building blocks of our algorithm, cautious approach to personalization
We are automating based on We can personalize based on
News value and lifetime Reading history on tags and topics
Published timestamp What others are reading
Article views Removing articles read (and impressed x times) Bundles Conversion and subscription-status (under construction!)
When you visited us the last time
123 Legg inn noe om mission/journalistic
Demo Legg inn noe om mission/journalistic
Results We have already seen very strong results - and we believe this is just the beginning
1. We have a 10-15% lift in articles read from our new front page compared to our manually edited front-page. 2. On par or better with manually edited front page in conversion rates - we believe this is just the beginning. 3. More of our users are exposed to a higher number of our best stories, as the new front page is built primarily on signals that reflect our editorial priority and time since published. 4. The new product enables us to speed up product development and build completely new and enriching features. By combining editorial judgment, relevant metadata, and sophisticated algorithms, the opportunities are almost endless. 5. We are about to eliminate legacy-workflows.
Thank you!
Eirik H. Winsnes Development Editor, Aftenposten [email protected]