How does the Onn distribute news stories and analysis?
All stories and analysis are posted by the readers. However, the Onn has a totally new distribution scheme which we’re trying to promote… even if you just take the idea and use it on your page. The Onn’s scheme can be said to “filter” content because when a member shows up to the site, they don’t see all posts that have been made by all users in an unorganized way. Members see a “subscription” personalized to them. How does this subscription get generated? Not by voting or any kind of computerized tabulation. Check it: every member picks a list of people, called “Portals”, whose opinions they trust and like. Those Portals “recommend” stories that they think are important (i.e. they add those stories to the database). When a member logs on, they see all the stories that all of their Portals have recommended recently. Recommending a story is really easy becase we have a firefox plugin that makes the process really fast. Also, you can view any other user’s subscription to see who their
