In our modern age, we tend to take our ability to instantly access information for granted. Smart phones, computers and the internet have all created a world in which information is readily at our fingertips; but this wasn’t always the case. In fact, just a few years ago the idea of a customizable source of news that could be accessed at any time was a thing of fantasy. Xinua, however, was one of the first to create just such a site.

Beginning in 2003, Xinua became the first website to ever offer a personalized way to keep informed about the subjects you most care about. Subscribers could build a personal home page, and the news was provided in real time. While this may seem passé for many young people today, at the time it was fairly revolutionary. This unique idea eventually spawned numerous websites with a similar format.

By selecting certain criteria, subscribers could view news stories from all over the globe on any topic in which they were interested. The website used a special algorithm which would scan the world-wide web for stories and features that met the criteria selected by the subscriber. This gave the user access to literally hundreds of news stories each and every day, and did so in a manner that was based on specific requests. As additional related stories were posted on the web, Xinua would forward these items to the subscriber instantaneously.

Previous to the Xinua website, most people that worked on computers were not privy to the world of high speed internet access. By subscribing to Xinua, users would receive news updates, as they happened, without the need to surf the internet looking for them. This was especially innovative because web surfing at the time often required waiting for several minutes while a web page was loading up, and in a work environment, time is money. By using this service, subscribers could simply look at the forwarded news clips whenever they had a few seconds, rather than having to wait for the page to load.

Another Xinua innovation was the elimination of a site manager and/or editor. The selected news stories came directly from their source website and were posted without oversight onto your personalized page. Rather than having a team of people actively searching the web looking for stories that they deemed important enough for posting, Xinua simply looked for anything and everything that matched the subscribers criteria and let the user decide what was most pertinent. This also eliminated any bias based on political affiliation and/or ideology.

Unfortunately, Xinua is no longer in service. However, their impact can be seen all over the internet. Just about every modern online news service allows subscribers to personalize the content that they view, and subscribers can receive news updates as they occur through email or other communication services. Furthermore, this information is all easily accessible at the simple touch of a button. The influence that Xinua has had on the online news industry is evident everywhere you look.

 

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