How FT is experimenting with aggregation service
FT Antenna gathers content from Twitter to keep FT readers up to date with the latest top stories on social media
The FT Antenna launched last week as an experiment in social media content aggregation from the Financial Times. The site opened in beta to pull together information from Twitter which may be of interest to FT readers.
"The fire hose of stories that are published on the web every day is difficult to keep up with", Lisa Pollack, head of new projects at FT.com, told Journalism.co.uk.
"Even if you check a variety of sites as well as your Twitter feed, there still can be a lingering feeling of having missed out on something."
She said Antenna is a point of reference on the most discussed topics on social platforms for FT readers who may be "shy about using social media or who don’t have the time for it".If we’re going to provide useful services to FT readers, we shouldn’t be too precious about exclusively pointing them to FT.comLisa Pollack, FT.com
"Antenna is, to some extent, just a logical repackaging of what we already do. One of our most popular emails is Alphaville’s 6am Cut. It contains links to both FT and non-FT stories."
The content featured on the website is picked by an algorithm with lists and fixed parameters determined by the FT's editorial team. Everything else is automatic, and Antenna's content selection is chosen from a "double whitelist".
For a tweet to be published on the site, the message has to come from an approved Twitter account, and the article it links to must originate from an approved website on a separate selected list.
Twitter users on the list include academics, bloggers, journalists, and people in the financial industry, and Pollack said they usually tweet a variety of news consistently.
Screenshot from FT Antenna
"Journalists are somewhat overrepresented because they are especially good at tweeting interesting stories promptly....MORE
