UK: regional publisher revamps websites geographically

Posted by John Burke on May 11, 2007 at 3:30 PM

UK publisher Archant is in the process of reworking its network of local newspaper sites so that readers can personalize their pages according to their residence. The innovation will allow readers to immediately see the local news that is most relevant to their lives when they log on.

Press Gazette reports that Archant journalists will begin tagging their stories with the postal codes of where they took place. When registering for a website, users will be asked to fill in their postal codes and will then be able to tailor their regional paper's homepage to show news from their immediate locality.

"People live their lives in the localities that they define, not in the ones that we define," said Archant development director Ian Davies.

Classified ads will also be "geotagged" and the technology could help the publisher sell more geo-specific advertising.

Source: Press Gazette

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