Information Layering

This phrase may be new to you, but information layering is used in one way or another by almost every successful Web site. It's a technique you can use easily on the Web, only with great difficulty in print, and not at all in broadcast media. Describing the concept in theory would take thousands of words, but a few pictures will make it clear in seconds, so that's what we'll use.

NewFactor Network (see Figure 2-1) makes excellent use of information layering. Here's the front page (Figure 2-1), with the first paragraph of each current general interest story on the site showing, along with an attractive (but small) graphic related to each story. Beyond the general interest reporting, a click on one of the links below the top of this page will take you to one of the site's many special interest sections. Cybercrime is a page that may not appeal to everyone, but it contains vital information for security-conscious NewsFactor readers.

Figure 2-1. NewsFactor Network home page.

This page (see Figure 2-2) goes much deeper into Internet and security matters than the main NewsFactor page; some stories from it may appear on the main page, but many security and cybercrime-related stories appear only in this section. This use of information layering means NewsFactor main page readers, who may want to scan only a few headlines that relate to Internet business in general, don't have a lot of specialized crime-related stories inflicted on them, but still catch the highlights of the CyberCrime section, and those who are interested specifically in security and crime still have a wealth of information available to them from NewsFactor Network.

Figure 2-2. Part of NewsFactor Network's CyberCrime section page.

Here's a portion of NewsFactor Network's Industry Trends page (see Figure 2-3). There isn't a word about security matters in sight. The articles here are aimed at an audience primarily interested in marketing and business strategy.

Figure 2-3. NewsFactor Network's Industry Trends page.

Note that all of these pages, like the main and section head pages on almost all successful news Web sites, show only story headlines and a short summary of each story's content. Once again, this is information layering. Headline-scanning readers have the option of reading only those stories that interest them and ignoring the rest.

Here's yet another information layer, one that is at the bottom of every NewsFactor story: a set of hyperlinks (see Figure 2-4). One link is to a talkback section where readers can discuss the story. Below that, there's a group of links to Related Stories for readers who want more information about the main story's topic than it contained directly. And the third group of links is to advertising pages that may be of specific interest to people who chose to read an article about (in this case) the possibility of new programs under development that may someday browse the Internet and trade data without any direct human intervention.

Figure 2-4. Links at the bottom of each NewsFactor story lead to yet more information layers.

Each NewsFactor reader gets just as much or as little information as he or she wants, and each new layer of information is easy to reach from the one that is above it.

Information layering may be a new phrase, but the idea behind it has been used by librarians as long as there have been libraries with books (or before that, scrolls or stone tablets) filed in categories and sub-categories. One of the Web's great strengths is the ease with which pieces of information can be linked to each other, either from one site to another or within a single site. In effect, hyperlinks can act as footnotes (and footnotes to footnotes) without the layout problems that footnotes create in printed books.

The closest a newspaper could come to information layering would be to have a front page with nothing but headlines, brief story summaries, and cumbersome "turn to page XX for more" notes all over it. Television and radio, because of their necessarily linear information delivery system, cannot use information layering at all; the only way a broadcaster can use information layering is to put up a Web site and refer viewers or listeners to it.

A Web site that is not built from the start to use information layering is not taking full advantage of the Internet. It is tempting, especially for people who have cut their media or marketing teeth offline, to deliver Web content the same way it is delivered in print or via broadcast media, but on a fiercely competitive Internet, those who try to do this are doomed to lose out to people who make full use of the Internet's capabilities instead of trying to pretend it is something it is not.

Although NewsFactor Network was built by people with prior offline journalism and marketing experience, it was designed from the start as an Internet-based content and advertising delivery system, easy for readers to use, and easy (hence inexpensive) for editors and reporters to manage from the "back end" of the site. It was not an accidental phenomenon started by a pair of college students in their dorm room, but a conscious effort by professionals to build a site that would attract not just one targeted audience, but a whole series of differentiated audience groups which a wide range of tech-oriented advertisers would pay premium rates to reach. Expenses have been held down brutally so that even during advertising downturns the site maintains a positive cash flow.

This success is repeatable. Not by copying NewsFactor Network, but by using the same level of ingenuity, planning, and hard work that went into it and by using information layering cleverly from the moment you start thinking about making (or redesigning) your site, not only as a way to make your site attractive to readers but as a way to hold down content and bandwidth costs by giving each individual reader only the information he or she wants instead of acting like a newspaper and delivering every bit of information you publish to every single reader.