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Archant has announced plans to develop a personalised online news service on its regional newspaper sites.

By introducing geotagging users will be able to prioritise the news they see online according to postcodes.

For the tagging to work, journalists will record the locations referred to in each story and add their postcodes as metadata when uploading their copy to the web.

The system is a development from Archant's use of Google Maps on its commercial sites Homes24 and Jobs24 , which allow users to search for property and jobs by registering their postcode.

The geotagging, which will be piloted by several of the group's titles from December 2007, is part of wider changes aimed at improving the use of content such as audio and video.

The new scheme will also lead to readers being able to comment on stories and further submit their own content.

Archant's director of group business development and chair of this project, Ian Davies, described the move as 'an obvious thing to do'.

"The new system will be more dynamic, easier to update and more engaging with consumers," he said.

"We will also be able to carry more than one picture in a story as well as audio and video links."

The revamp, which will be rolled out across the group during 2008, will also see the introduction of a new content management system and web designs.

Despite the geographic presentation of news, Davies added, the websites would remain under the local newspaper brand.

Archant's Norwich Evening News is likely to feature in the early stages of the pilot.

Assistant editor, Zoe Catchpole, said the paper had been working towards personalised news for some time but so far lacked the appropriate software.

Mapping tools, she added, could be used to help readers see where traffic accidents were happening, where there are planning issues or see what restaurants they should go to.

"It will also be useful for reporters to refer back to when they are looking for locations - they will of course have to remember that they need to get postcodes to go with their stories," she said.

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Written by

Laura Oliver
Laura Oliver
Laura Oliver is a freelance journalist, a contributor to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, co-founder of The Society of Freelance Journalists and the former editor of Journalism.co.uk (prior to it becoming JournalismUK)

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