Q: What is it that you do that other sites do not do, as there are many news sites?
A: We have the best content on most of the major issues and topics of today available on Search. Our unique structure offering gist, context and insights, enables us to deliver better search content than any other news site. We go back over 20 years for content to provide better context. In addition to Top Stories we also offer browsing opportunities in Early Warning, Renewal America, Renewal Europe, The Way Forward, Fighting Fake News, Movement for Global Literacy.
Q: How is the format, style, design setup to make news content easy and fun to view.
A: We have made news content easy to consume on iPhone, smartphone or iPad, with great attention to style that has simplicity, omits needless words, and to design that provides easy access to insights in 15- 30 seconds, or for 1-3 minutes for delving deeper based on interest. For looking deeper into a topic we have content conveniently arranged for easy access.
Q: How does Lyrarc cover the news with selections from major global news sites.
How is it different than say going to Google News or the BBC, or CNN? How does it address my time constraints if I have only 5 minutes or 10 minutes, and still keep me well informed?
A: Lyrarc looks at the most viewed information also, seeing that there is some merit in the fact that more people went to a particular piece of information and viewed it. But it takes into account the vast computing power of technology that now reaches billions of pieces of information. Looks at the presence of Google and other companies that have by their presence led to the domination of algorithms. Looks at the effects of this on the quality of news information.
Lyrarc adopts the approach of taking the most viewed pieces of information in media for readers with a higher level of proficiency, such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and others. It uses humans with expertise to take the ten most read world and national news topics, and selects the best articles for each of these topics in the top twenty quality of coverage news media sources worldwide, giving multiple perspectives. It then makes these accessible to readers in three ways simplifying the task of the reader who wants to stay connected, informed, worldly, preparing him to function well in a global economy.
First, by providing the gist or short summary of the best articles on a topic each week, that take into account the other good articles also written on that topic that week. Second, by using its unique patented technology of groups and links. Groups are constructed from articles to provide instant recognition of content from titles, with a range of groups on a topic. Links connect two articles which provide insight from different perspectives, and also can be instantly recognized for content. Third, the Search bar in Lyrarc.com brings up only the most important, most read by proficient readers, with the least number of redundant or irrelevant content. Fourth, Top Stories also function in the same way for the five most important topics for that week or two week period, bringing up the best, most relevant, most viewed content by proficient readers.
Tests with Google News and Google Search showing superior performance- in time saved by a factor of 5-10, and insights gained to be informed, connected, prepared, for a global economy work environment.
Our own tests with Google News and Google Search, show superior performance for the most recent Top Story in June 2017 of U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate change accord. The superior performance is in three categories. In the first category, in speed and time saved. Google Search with keyword in Google’s Search bar of “Paris climate accord” brings up a range of articles. The articles on the Top Stories for term “Paris climate change” is the other place in Google News. The time saved could be by a factor of 5 to 10 times as the gist of articles from multiple perspectives of the best sources in Lyrarc.com enables not having to read each article.The first three lines given by Google are mostly inadequate to bring out insights, requiring further reading of each article. Because Google does not or cannot in a web crawler based world differentiate between articles for quality of content on a topic, the articles are mostly random when tested for quality and multiple perspectives.
The second category, superior performance is in insights gained, as the insights are stated in the Lyrarc gist or summary of important selected articles. The three line blurb following the title of an article in Google News or Google Search results is not designed to provide insights. Third category, because of the time saved up to this point the reader can now easily look at the groups and links, and click on a group or link to explore a particular angle such as how the European Union views the U.S. withdrawal as one of about 10-20 angles covered. Before one has clicked and looked at the second or third article in Google’s list, a reader could have gained the insights, looked at the multiple perspectives, and be done in Lyrarc.com. Overall the performance is far superior in terms of insights gained and in the time it takes by a multiple factor. Here is the information that came up on Google Search and Google News Top Stories on this topic, and the corresponding information from Lyrarc.com for this test. Other sites CNN, Fr 24, BBC are also shown for comparison. A discussion in detail of the Test Results follows.
Lyrarc.com Test Results
Topic: U.S. withdrawal from Paris Climate Change Accord
Date: June 3, 2017
Internet sites of Lyrarc, FR 24, BBC News, CNN, Google News, used in this comparison
Angles to Topic/Insights
1. Cited Scientific Evidence Only Lyrarc and BBC News covered this angle for insights
2. 4 year Process Only Lyrarc covered this angle for insights
3. Utilities shift from coal Only Lyrarc covered this angle for insights
4. Reaction- U.S. Lyrarc, FR 24, BBC News, CNN, Google News covered this angle
5. Reaction- Europe, China Lyrarc, FR 24, BBC News, CNN, Google News covered this angle
6. Reaction- India Only Lyrarc and BBC News covered this angle
7. Politics- Trump base Only Lyrarc and FR 24 covered this angle
Lyrarc Test Results Discussion
In covering the topic from as many of the important angles Lyrarc bears in mind the major concerns of young readers of fake news and polarizing news, time constraints, transparency(integrity), and authenticity. We looked at BBC, CNN, Fr 24, Google News, for this test.
Fake News
Instant, breaking news is covered by all the sites. Google’s tendency to focus on the instant or immediate, breaking news, day by day, detracts from the need of the present time for perspective, of carefully reflecting on what is being conveyed, and building depth to ensure readers understand not just skim through.
Trivia and major news topics scattered within the site are to be seen in BBC News and CNN.Readers may have to skip a story on a stabbing incident to get to a major news topic.The extent of trivia undermines the coverage of major news topics as the reader’s focus is lost by the time he reaches the end of the page.
Polarizing News
Much of the coverage had the nature of polarized coverage, resulting in a focus on reaction of cities, different countries. As a result missing some of the important angles on the topic such as cited Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientific evidence, the utilities shift away from coal, the four year process leaving a final decision to the 2020 election.
Time constraints
The Google articles had 30-40 titles from a whole range of sources in a random order with no organization. The titles were followed by 1 and half lines on the content which conveyed very little information. The three articles at the top from Washington Post, Guardian and the New York Times, would have to be read to get some comprehension of the topic, which would take about 15 minutes to 25 minutes depending on the reader.
The CNN and BBC articles on climate change were embedded in various topics in a random fashion, mixed in with some trivia and some articles on other topics including the investigations into Trump campaign and Comey. Readers would have to have some discipline to avoid the distraction from the random order and trivia. Clicking on the scientific evidence topic in the BBC might be missed in the coverage of U.S. and world reaction. The India climate change coverage in BBC and the science story would only give a small part of the whole picture, and reading the 2 stories would take 10 or 15 minutes depending on the reader, and 5 minutes to find the articles by looking at the cluttered page and random order.
By contrast in the 20-30 minutes it would take on each of the other sites, the reader could in 10 minutes in Lyrarc.com read the gist and cover all the main points from all or most of the important angles to the topic, and look at the groups and links for added insights.
Polarizing effect and Authenticity/Transparency
Fighting fake news also involves fighting fringe views and highly polarized content as it detracts from a good understanding of a topic from different angles. Lyrarc makes this possible by presenting topics covering multiple perspectives and covering different angles of the topic.
On this topic all of the sites tended to be polarized, some strongly so, leading to covering mostly world reaction and not adding to a comprehension of the topic. By avoiding this tendency Lyrarc provided a better comprehension of the topic, and covered most of the important angles on the topic of climate change, giving new insights to the reader.
Easy Access
Through its unique patented Groups and Links structure of organizing the world’s information Lyrarc makes access easy to get in depth understanding of a topic. The Search bar provides the capability to enter a keyword and search at any time to bring up relevant and important information only, because of the way it is structured. By contrast the scattered nature with trivia in BBC and CNN, and the huge number of entries in Google make looking for information tedious and time consuming. Once this hurdle is overcome there remains the next hurdle of reading all the articles one by one, not just skimming them as that would not help much in understanding. Not only is information organized better in Lyrarc, the gist of important articles in Lyrarc means not having to read each article, one by one.
