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Introduction
Delivering The Daily Us
Barry Fenn
HyperMedia Unit
The University of Auckland
Aotearoa New Zealand
barry@cs.auckland.ac.nz
Jenny Shearer
Political Science Department
The University of Auckland
Aotearoa New Zealand
jshearer@cs.auckland.ac.nz
Abstract: We have a while longer to wait for the computer-based intelligent agents that can
search out, evaluate, and deliver personalised selections of global media resources to us on a
regular basis. An opportunity exists right now, however, to implement network environments
that distribute and prioritise hypermedia 'suggestions' offered within communities of human
associates. Such a ‘Daily Us’ would incorporate layers of automated selection and
prioritisation of references sent and received among individuals and interest groups. This
same sort of media interface will then naturally come to assimilate whatever resources are
eventually gathered by intelligent agents. The result will be a system serving the personal
entertainment and information needs of each user, while also incorporating and enhancing
important social integration functions now served by print and broadcast media. Some of the
interactive structures needed to effectively coordinate such overlapping patterns of crossreference
may then evolve to support fundamentally new modes of human communication.
Most people in ‘developed’ societies already expect to access a wide variety of media coming from sources
distributed around the globe. In fact, most people’s lives have become very closely intertwined with existing
‘channels’ of access to media. Selection of what is important or worthwhile, however, still usually depends in
the first instance upon a relatively few ‘gatekeepers’ such as editors or professional reviewers. The next major
cultural epoch will see us all empowered with the means to powerfully influence each other’s selection process.
The ideal Web interface will fully acknowledge not just the user, but the user as part of an extended
community. Each individual Internet user's community associations are unique and now becoming increasingly
independent of geographic proximity. A substantial part of the social conversation that sustains such online
communities revolves around shared experience of particular media reports or resources. In turn, whatever
specific blend of media a person happens to encounter exerts a strong influence on their whole pattern of
individual identity - directly affecting their perceived relationship with the world at large. All of this
represents a domain of potential interactive enrichment that needs to be supported much more intentionally.
Usage of the Internet also reveals a strong user interest in various aspects of ‘community’ in its own right, as
well as personalisation. The two domains of information are not separate issues; when integrated, they develop
a social utility. That is, the individual is assisted in carrying out whatever tasks or recreation he or she has in
mind, while also being advised of information they might "need to know" for purposes of the common good -
one of the traditional functions of mass media.
‘The Daily Us’
The move toward completely user-defined media environments is often criticised for neglecting 'serendipity' -
the chance to accidentally discover important information - by limiting the user to only what they might expect
to encounter. This is an important criticism, but one that overlooks the dominant trend toward more and more
widespread interpersonal 'sharing' of media resources that has been steadily accelerating since photocopiers