Guardian Geeks May Have Stumbled Upon the Future of the Newspaper

If the relentless personalisation of digital media is anything to go by, the future of the newspaper might go the way of the Semantic Web: a narcissistic rock pool, where we peer endlessly at a reflected image of our own interests and desires… 

Or perhaps not. But last week, the Guardian newspaper’s technology department held their first ever ‘Hack Day’, freeing their IT galleon slaves to muck about a bit and create new web related tools. One of their main creations was ‘charlian.co.uk‘ a version of the Guardian site featuring nothing but Charlie Brooker content, which reads a bit like being trapped on a giant teacup funfair ride with an over-intelligent, mildly hated adolescent stepson. 

Brooker had no involvement in the site, and described the moment of seeing it as being like “a serial killer movie… that moment when they find a hidden shrine with hundreds of surveillance shots and rose petals nailed over the eyes.”

Still, the idea is clever. Who wouldn’t want a personalised stream of high quality journalism that follows only the subjects you’re interested in, filtering out all those terrible columnists (e.g. Littlejohn, Dowling, McKenzie, Toynbee) and subjects (e.g. celebrity guff, rising/falling/rising property prices, David Cameron’s iPod selection, etc.) you can’t bear to read? Advertising is already heading in this direction, becoming more specific, targeted, and effective, suggesting print media will probably have to follow the money at some point, like it or no. 

In the States, print media tech-heads are still fond of the idea of creating an e-reader along the line of the newspapers used in the film Minority Report, possibly for the sheer futurist thrills, but maybe the Charlian.co.uk/personal journalism portal concept unearthed by the Guardian techies will be the one that catches a fire. Time will tell. 

Meanwhile, for more fun from the Guardian’s ‘Hack Day’, check out the vid below:

Hack Day at The Guardian from InsideGuardian on Vimeo.

Posted by Jack Roberts in Creative Economy | November 19, 2008 2:19PM |