News: Timeliness (1 of 2)

In this post about news I want to elaborate on the issue of timeliness I mentioned in my introductory post. I am restricting this series of posts to internet news sources since that is how I primarily consume news. By timeliness I mean how I can place a news item within the flow of time, not how it is distributed to me (push vs. pull); distribution is so well understood I have nothing to add, though I will note I use a mix of push and pull, each depending on whether the distribution source suited to my urgent requirements or merely important, respectively.

One subject where timeliness can be urgent is market and stock news, so I'll use it as my first example; this is particular to me, though you likely have other applications of equal urgency, be it sports or other events. Urgency of market and stock news is a mix of the subjective and objective. For example, if Google announces that they are lowering guidance, that is urgent to those trading in Google stock, and perhaps less so for other market players. This secondary urgency in the latter case varies with whether the stock is used as a broader market indicator. That is, if this example about Google, it will move indices and sentiment indicators for at least the internet sector and perhaps more widely. This is not true of Avanex, to pick a random example.

To broadly categorize urgency I would use the following, in decreasing level of urgency, but not of importance:

• Financial or business news about a stock I hold or trade that impacts its future returns
• News about stocks, bonds, equities, or key indicators that others broadly trade of the basis of key changes
• News about stocks I hold
• Analysis of stocks I hold or trade
• Market analysis from sources that the market broadly listens to and will trade on
• Other market and stock analysis

News in this case can be company press releases, notable changes in stock price or volume, scheduled events like quarterly results, and much more. Analysis is not about market and stock events (though it may be perceived as an event itself), but rather is about current or projected business, sectors and companies, or outside influence upon them. If analysis is any good it's important, but usually not urgent.

Urgent news must be timely, so I should choose a suitable distribution mechanism to ensure it reaches me quickly and is presented prominently. Important but non-urgent news should be within reach, whether distributed by push or pull, and should not displace presentation of urgent news items. Of course non-urgent analysis should not displace either of those.

All urgent and important news should give presented with extra prominence, whether that be by colour, icon, blinking, order in a list, or other means. All news, no matter its urgency or importance, should have a timestamp, and preferably in the link to the article in addition to within the article itself, and presentation should order articles by timestamp wherever it is presented. Timestamps are generally of the following types:

• date
• date and time
• time since published

That concludes my definition of timeliness in the context of a market and stocks application. It isn't cast in stone and it may be incomplete, but it's good enough for this discussion. In my concluding post on news timeliness I'll compare the performance of some of the news services I use.