Inform, (see previous postings here and here) which describes itself as being "in the business of organizing, or structuring, massive amounts of unstructured data," will be physically present on partner websites in the form of a box that leads the reader deeper into subjects related to the article they are reading. This is possible through "meta-tagging", which, as described by Inform, "systematically tags and scores each component of (an) article, identifying every topic, industry, organization, person, place and product mentioned throughout the entire article."

For an example, visit NewsOK.com, the portal for Oklahoma run by the daily The Oklahoman and a state television station. Next to an article, you'll see the Inform box. When you click on one of the the "related searches," you are transported to a NewsOK page that not only gives you info related to the info in the article, but which is also categorized between other articles in the Oklahoman and outside publications.  You can also search by article, blog or video.

Integrated into the text of articles are also background info of proper names and places which bring readers to another NewsOK page listing all of the relevant articles with that name from the Oklahoman, the Web, blogs, audio and video. By linking to their own articles, newspapers will help to improve the stickiness of their site, ultimately boosting advertising revenues.  

By linking to outside sources, Inform's service takes readers a step further than the New York Times TimesTopics which links to other NYT stories.

By linking to outside sources, partner newspapers also become news aggregators competing with the very Googles and Yahoos of the world that more and more publishers are pushing to respect copyright.

The potential problem for newspapers is that Inform is not only partnering with traditional news providers. This week it also announced a deal with Answers.com, the “world’s greatest encyclodictionalmanacapedia”. Bambi Francisco at MarketWatch, already a fan of Answers for her definitions and topic briefs, thinks that someday she may just get all of her news from Answers.

For instance, type in Saddam Hussein to the search function on Answers and you get background info from Britannica and Columbia University Press among others (including Wikipedia). Not only do users get a complete biography form these entries about the former Iraqi dictator, they also get the latest developments in his story.

Still, Inform seems promising for papers; as long as they figure out two online dilemmas with which newspapers continue to struggle.

Firstly, newspapers using Inform need to maintain the quality of and increase awareness of their brand, especially concerning young readers. This is a crucial period for newspapers in attracting young readers, not merely because newspaper readers are older and purportedly dying out, but because if they don’t catch them now, young readers could grow quickly accustomed to getting their news from sites like Answers.com or Wikipedia for the rest of their lives. Let’s not forget that the number one news site in the world is Yahoo.com.

Secondly, such a system as Inform’s will be impeded by paywalled archives. The large majority of readers who can not freely click through to a link will not only refuse to pay, but they will log the name of the publication in their brain and refrain from clicking on an archived link the next time they do a search. It’s time for publishers to really sit down and figure out if they will make more money from charging per archived article, per archive subscription (see TimesSelect) or by advertising revenue in a freely searchable online library of their paper.  

Sources: MarketWatch, Answers.com, NewsOK, Inform.com