Ever since we set up The Matters Network, we’ve been trying to find new ways to bring local content to out thousands of users. So at the end of 2008 we set up the Matters News Network, the aim was to distill the gigabytes of local data we produce each day and distribute it in the most convenient way (for us and our users).

We decided on Twitter, the whole gang are big fans and we could see it was about to explode into the mainstream in the UK.

You can find your local Twitter feed at the Matters News Network blog post form last month.

Matters News Network 2.0

Since that post we have had a massive response with many accounts seeing a 10 fold increase in followers, some however are still empty; Herefordshire and Berkshire to name and shame a few.

Never deterred we pressed on with a survey to find out peoples attitudes to social news sites, here are some of the responses:

“Digg unearths things that I wouldn’t find any other.”

“[...] too much emphasis on content democracy and ‘digging up’ which is usually a publicity ploy”

“[...] easier to build networks, like tags for searchability of items”

“Fast moving, varied, able to focus on smaller subjects [...]“

“Simplicity, I use it more for my own references rather than giving an article support.”

By far the most important aspect to users was, ease of use. Well over 10% of respondent complained that sites such ad Digg required too much time and effort to participate in, but they liked the ability to find new and relevant information.

We wanted to keep the ease of use but simultaneously order, rate and rank the stories, this then allowed us to process more sources and increase the quality of our twitter feeds.

Secret Sauce

We believe in openness, and our ranking algorithm is no exception. We have plenty security measures in place plus all the stories come form trusted sources so we have less problems with spam.

Activity

More viewed articles will float to the top

If a story is re-tweeted is gets a boot

Freshness

Newer stories are given higher priority

Keywords

A dynamically changing list of keywords ensures we reflect current trends and public opinion

3 point OH!

We are looking to expand the range of blogs, local news papers, podcasts etc. IF you run a locally focused blog or online news source contact us or leave a comment