Admit it: When you sign on to the Internet, there's probably an easily definable list of sites you visit and things you do. Whether it's a trip first thing to the e-mail in-box, a glance at the latest sports scores, or a pause at the online auction site to check to see if you've been outbid on this week's hideous (but salvageable!) lamp, we all have routines. Readers of online news are no exception.

If you're anything like me, you start at the same place everyday – perhaps a local newspaper's site – and continue on to a news aggregator like Google or Yahoo News. The result is a news-reading experience that can provide good scope and depth. But what if users want more from their news?

A site launched this month thinks it has the answer. As its creators describe it, Newsvine offers readers the same wire stories they'll find on many other large sites, but it also gives them a chance to interact with the news. After reading a story, visitors can rate it, submit comments, or even enter a live chat about it with other users. The ratings a story receives help determine the prominince it has on the site's homepage.

But who wants to read just wire stories? One of the benefits of the Internet is its vast array of content. Newsvine harnesses this by allowing users to "tag" stories they find elsewhere on the Web and submit them to the site. Newsvine calls this "seeding." The theory is that while the volume of information on the web is daunting, individual users can point out stories they come across on their favorite sites – a local newspaper, for instance – thus broadening and enriching the experience for everyone.

In theory it sounds great. In practice, it may need some tweaking. In my tests of the site over the past few days, I found its myriad features slightly overwhelming to navigate. Besides the ones I've already mentioned, Newsvine offers features like the ability to create custom pages, track topics and regions of interest, and write pieces for distribution on the site. I wanted to get a good overall feel for what the site offers, but I wasn't sure which features to focus on – there are so many. That may turn some people off, but it could also be a testament to the site's flexibility and mass appeal. If users find one or two features that they like and that work for them, that may be enough to keep them coming back. A good place to begin is the site's welcome or where to start page.

One thing I really liked was how easy it was to send in stories of interest. Dragging a button to my Firefox bookmark toolbar let me mark stories for submission to Newsvine as I read them on other sites. But, contrary to any notions I may have had about my superb news judgment, it's highly unlikely that any of my posts ever made it to the front page. New users are placed in a sort of trial mode, where their "seeds" (submitted stories) can't make it to the "vine" (main page) until they've proved they're not a "bot" or spammer. Veteran users can troll the "greenhouse" for content submitted by new members. If enough veterans endorse your posts, your stories are eligible for inclusion on the main page.

As much fun as this concept sounds, in practice, I found Newsvine to be more useful for tracking specific issues than keeping abreast of the broad range of news. Searching for and monitoring topics on the site is easy (just add the tag you want to search to the end of the Newsvine.com URL). But I felt I was missing something if I used Newsvine's main page as my home base for news. Google News offers many more stories from many more trusted sources than Newsvine does.

But that isn't necessarily a setback for Newsvine. I don't think it's intended to be a one-stop shop for news. Rather, it works best as a companion to users as they make their way through the news each day. See something you like that might be flying under the radar? A click of a button and a few subject-related tags will pass it along to others who might be interested. On the flip side, if surfers find a story on a subject of interest as they're going through the news elsewhere, but they want to read more, a search of Newsvine can lead them to other quality stories hand-picked by readers who share the same interests, but may troll a different part of the Net.

The result is a reciprocally enriching online news experience. You get the safety of your trusted news routine, you provide other readers with your unique view of the news and what's important, and you get the same right back in return.

by Tom Regan

Earlier this week the good folks at the Pew Internet and American Life Project released new data that showed more people are using the Internet to gather political information and news.

Television news remains dominant, but there has been further erosion in the audience for broadcast TV news. The Internet, a relatively minor source for campaign news in 2000, is now on par with such traditional outlets as public television broadcasts, Sunday morning news programs and the weekly news magazines. And young people, by far the hardest to reach segment of the political news audience, are abandoning mainstream sources of election news and increasingly citing alternative outlets, including comedy shows such as the Daily Show and Saturday Night Live, as their source for election news.

Interesting, no? I'm as intrigued by the growth of the comedy shows (Jon Stewart, the 21st century's Walter Cronkite?) as I am by the growth of the Internet. But the fact that the Internet now rivals the talking head gabfests and the PBS news, shows tells me that the Net is becoming the medium of choice for political junkies.

Then today The Washington Post reports that political candidates trying to use the Internet to win support from young, Web-wise voters should avoid pop-up and banner ads and instead use interactive media like Internet chats and "blogs." The study showed that almost 70 percent of those surveyed said they would be less likely to pay attention to the candidate who only wanted to send text messages to their e-mail inboxes or cell phones. The study was conducted by ... (take a deep breathe) ... the DC-based Council for Excellence in Government's Center for Democracy and Citizenship, and the University of Maryland's Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

"There's no question that young people, probably more than any other subset of voters, want to be listened to, not talked to," said Michael Cornfield, research director for the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at the George Washington University. "They want to have someone connect their perception of the issues on a local scale to those on a national or global scale."

Well, duh. You don't need a study to know that people want interactivity from the Web. Especially young people. Young people want candidates to listen to their ideas, not just have the candidates throw their ideas at them and hope some stick. The politician who realizes that the Web is the way to reconnect young people with politics will go far indeed. Howard Dean has come the closest so far, but even his efforts leave much to be desired.

We can only hope that political candidates (and most media sites for that matter) will learn to listen more, and pontificate less. I also want to hope for the best, and believe politicians will take full advantage of the Web to do more than just raise money.

But then again, I also want the Red Sox to win the World Series, so I've learned to live with disappointment.