Press Release: Winnipeg Free Press Launches Fully Personalized News Site
Oslo, Norway - 4 June, 2015 - Winnipeg Free Press has a different look these days, after completely changing out their homepage for something new entirely: a fully automatic, personalized front page, where practically all articles are picked out by the reader's habits.
Powered by Cxense, a leading provider of real-time analytics, data management and personalization technology, the site learns the preferences of the reader, and mixes personal preference with current news to produce a unique news blend for each reader. The goal? To provide each and every user with a better experience, no matter what device they are on.
Most online sites who experiment with site personalization use one or two columns to serve personalized recommendations, but Winnipeg Free Press have dedicated the whole front page, as well as several other sub-sections.
A true world first
"This is a true world first in the online news industry, and an important step ahead for online media," says Christian Panson, Vice President Digital Content and Audience Revenue at Winnipeg Free Press. "We think this will be the standard way of serving news within a few years. It's just that much better for the users they get more original content that matters to them brought to the homepage. It also lets our team spend more time concentrating on what really matters for a newspaper. The news."
Other ingenious functions of the new Winnipeg Free Press site, includes nifty bookmarking solutions for those articles best read at a later point. This way, a reader can take notice of an amusing story that might not be prudent to read at a workplace and bookmark it to read on the bus going home.
"Going fully personalized is a huge step, no doubt about that, and it's the right one for many media companies," says Ståle Bjørnstad, CEO, Cxense. "Readers these days demand a say in what they read, and this is the most effective way of providing that. Furthermore, the resources freed up by letting the algorithms handle the frontpage can be put to good use with providing even more and better content."
