Newspapers have one more option when it comes to organizing their Web content, thanks to an online management app rolled out by a New York City software developer.

Inform Technologies LLC launched its Inform Publisher Services platform in late July, signing up six media customers including The New York Sun, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and NewsOK.com, the Web site of The Oklahoman and CBS affiliate KWTV-TV in Oklahoma City. Other sites are The Deal LLC, NameMedia and The Huffington Post.

The software scans each posted article, using a series of algorithms, natural language processing and other analytical mechanisms to tag and score each component, ranging from industry and topic to organization and people mentioned.

The Oklahoman beefed up its Web site by adding search and related-story capabilities.
 

It then automatically collects and displays related stories in a sidebar adjacent to the article. Content is retrieved from the publication’s internal archives as well as from competing sources across the Internet. ITL said the software can scan millions of articles in less than a week.

Amassing the information in a single page display encourages visitors to find everything they need from the newspaper’s site, thus keeping them from traveling to rival Web pages, ITL said.

Deeper into content

 “We’re always in search of innovative ways to engage users and lead them deeper into our quality content,” said Caroline Little, chief executive officer and publisher of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. “By working with companies like Inform, we will make our content easier to find and read, which keeps readers engaged longer, drives more traffic and ultimately helps us make more money.”

Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive’s sites include washingtonpost.com, newsweek.com, Slate and BudgetTravel Online.com.

The Sun, meantime, expects visitor traffic to increase once it deploys IPS later this month, according to General Manager August Fields.

“We believe that most people allot a given amount of time a day to news consumption,” he said. “As more of that time is dedicated to Web-based consumption, we want to replace as many ancillary sites as possible and become a one-stop shopping venue for online news consumers.”

The Sun’s site currently displays updated wire stories, breaking news forums and archives but with IPS, the paper will be able to enhance each feature by offering related content.

Core focus

“Inform will offer a better-organized and more in-depth experience for every page rendered to our viewers,” Fields said.

The app will also allow the online staff at The Sun to focus their creative energy on content rather than how it is organized on the paper’s Web site.

“I think it’s fair to say that if we offered this kind of enhanced content on our own, we would spend a huge amount of time in compiling and organizing the offerings,” he said. “Our goal is to dedicate our resources to create unique and compelling content and allow Inform to augment those resources with additional content from outside of The Sun.”

NewsOK.com launched IPS in August; the site now includes links for related articles and associated searches for each story posted online, said Kelly Dyer Fry, director of multimedia.

“Inform gives us a chance to win back those ad dollars and more - it’s like I’ve hired 30,000 journalists to generate and relate content from our site, archives and the Web,” she said. “Now, readers can click several layers deep on any topic, turning a single page view into three-to-five. And, if they want more news, we point them to articles on the Web.”