NewsNow is a news aggregator service that was launched in 1998 with fewer than ten sources, it now links to thousands of publications including top news providers. NewsNow provides a service in which breaking news articles are matched against key-word topic specifications, the relevant links and publication names are then delivered to the user. Other than NewsNow's main website, which is freely accessible to the general public, the company provides customised news feeds for corporate subscribers. The site also offers access via mobile devices, and offers a version tailored for the Opera Mini

Opera Mini

Opera Mini is a web browser designed primarily for mobile phones, smartphones and personal digital assistants. Until version 4 it used the Java ME platform, requiring the mobile device to run Java ME applications. From version 5 it is also available as a native application for Android, iOS, Symbian...

 application.

Interface

NewsNow uses a search function and a list of colour coded, pre-built topics (or categories) to allow users to find desired content. The site also provides the option to search topics, and saves up to 10 of one's most-viewed topics. The site also offers a full-text searching service to subscribers (non-subscribers are limited to headline searches for words or phrases). News articles clicked on by users are displayed in a pop up window, or a new tab. If the user enters a particular category NewsNow gathers as many articles as possible on the category and then displays them in chronological order. Beside each news line, a flag icon is shown to represent the country of origin of the publication, which tells the reader at a glance from which part of the globe the news derives. Any user can highlight or hide all headlines of a particular news source by clicking on the name of the news provider.

Categories

• Hot Topics – This category is on the top of the homepage for popular breaking news, and creates new categories for important global events.
• Current Affairs
• World News – This category contains articles which affect a large proportion of the planet, these are usually major issues such as international summits or natural catastrophes.
• Business and Finance – This category contains articles on more or less anything money related, it includes major information on developments in the major companies as well as stock information.
• Science – This category contains articles from the scientific world, includes important research publications, new theory's, etc.
• Technology – This category contains articles to do with technology, includes reviews of new devices, anything related to technology, for example business information about a microchip manufacturer.
• Sport – This category contains articles of recent news in sports, NewsNow.co.uk also supports live scores which will allow the user to see the score of a match as it is happening in real life.
• Life & Style – This category contains articles to do with fashion, general points in life, etc.
• Arts & Entertainment – This category contains articles on films, theatre, music, games, etc.

Sources

NewsNow searches over 33,000 sources from all over the world in real time. NewsNow.co.uk adds approximately 100 new sources every day, which are located by a dedicated research time. It searches through articles in 20 different languages in 141 different countries. In contrast to more conventional news feeds, these sources include reputable blogs and electronic journals. Users are given the option to exclude blogs from newsfeeds if so desired. NewsNow does not host or create any of the supplied articles. It searches through all the major news providers, as well as blogs, scientific and electronic journals.

Ranking

NewsNow.co.uk is the 207th most visited website in the UK, and approximately 50% of all its users are from the UK. Moreover, the site is generally visited by over 2 million users monthly and receives in excess of 100 million page views per month.

NewsNow has around 2 million pages indexed with Yahoo! and Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

. It has a 20% market share making it the second largest news aggregation site on the internet second only to Google News

Google News

Google News is a free news aggregator provided by Google Inc, selecting recent items from thousands of publications by an automatic aggregation algorithm....

. According to data from Hitwise

Hitwise

Experian Hitwise is a global online competitive intelligence service which collects data directly from ISP networks to aid website managers in analysing trends in visitor behavior and to measure website market share. The Hitwise product is a commercial platform whereby customers pay Hitwise a...

, as of 22 August 2009, NewsNow accounted for almost 20% of visits to news aggregators in the UK.

Advertisement

NewsNow.co.uk creates revenue from its many free users through advertisement. Adverts are displayed on all of the site's webpages, clearly visible to anyone who accesses the site.

Subscription Service

NewsNow's second source of income comes from a subscription service. For a monthly fee, organisations can have a tailored news-feed sent to them articles connected to keywords specified by the company. For example a large company, such as IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

 (one of NewsNow's subscribers) can have all articles with any reference to IBM sent directly to them. The service claims that articles will be sent to the customer within 15 minutes of the articles being published on the original site.
News feeds can be filtered based on sophisticated key-word (and exclusion) profiles including context of the chosen words. News feeds are delivered to clients by email or by direct FTP or 'HTTP Push'.

Controversy

According to an open letter placed on its site, NewsNow has been threatened with potential legal action by several publishers, including News International

News International

News International Ltd is the United Kingdom newspaper publishing division of News Corporation. Until June 2002, it was called News International plc....

, the publishers of The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

, The Sun and The News of the World. An open letter, written by Struan Bartlett, NewsNow's Managing Director and Chairman, claims that the publishers are threatening legal action over NewsNow's refusal to accept new controls over links to websites owned by these publishers. He responded to the comments from the News International with the following statement:

"We deliver you traffic and drive you revenues you otherwise wouldn't have received. The idea that we are undermining your businesses is incorrect. It is fanciful to imagine that, if it weren't for link aggregators, you would have more traffic or revenues. We provide a service that you do not: a means for readers to find your content more readily, via continuously updating links to a diversity of websites."

There has also been interest from the UK's Newspaper Licensing Agency

Newspaper Licensing Agency

The Newspaper Licensing Agency Limited is the collecting society for UK newspapers, a privately owned limited company...

 regarding the use of news headlines search results, which they consider to be copyrighted content.

Infrastructure

Newsnow can be accessed via the following domain names: newsnow.co.uk, newsnow.org and newsnow.net, however, it cannot be accessed through the newsnow.com domain name. This may be because there is already an existing company with a similar name ABC News Now

ABC News Now

ABC News Now is an American 24-hour news channel offered via digital television, broadband and streaming video at ABCNews.com and on mobile phones. It delivers breaking news, headline news each half hour, and wide range of entertainment and lifestyle programs. The channel is currently available in...

(American Broadcasting Company), who will most likely own the '.com' domain name.