I have an idea for a new type of news aggregation that always delivers the most interesting news locally, nationally, and globally. I'm not sure how to make money off of this idea though - what do you think?

Here is how it would work:

Each news item would be tagged with a radius of influence, and each user would be tagged as inhabiting a radius of interest.

The radius of influence is a circle on a map, drawn around the location where each story was reported. The circle is larger when the population density is low. So, a town in Nebraska would have a large circle on the map. Densely populated areas have small radii of influence. So, an area like a neighborhood in New York City would have a small circle on the map.

The radius of interest is a circle drawn around each user. It follows the same rules, but can be adjusted if the user wishes.

Imagine two stories arrive at the site from a town in Nebraska. These stories could be curated, or they could be automatically plucked by an algorithm. One headline reads, "Benkelman trash collection to resume Wednesday;" the other reads, "Benkelman customer throws snake into Taco Bell drive through window."

Both stories originate in a small community, and both stories have local interest. Both stories begin with a small radius of influence, but since the population density is low, the circle on the map covers a large area, maybe the whole state, but not the whole country.

If any user’s radius of interest overlaps with the story's radius of influence, that user will see the story when they log onto the site, even if the story has yet to be clicked on. Any click on a story will expand the story's radius.

If it originated in an area with a dense population, the expansion will occur in short increments. If it originated in an area with a low density, it will expand dramatically.

It is likely the story about trash collection will not gather many many clicks outside the community it affects. The circle will only get so large and then stay put; it will stop receiving clicks and only appear on the screens of locals. Once it remains stagnant for a while, it expires.

The story about the snake, which is most relevant to locals who know the Taco Bell in question, will begin to gather clicks quickly because it has mass appeal. The more clicks it gathers, the more its radius will expand. As the radius expands, the circle on the map will begin to cover people farther away from the source. New users will begin to see the story when they log on, and new viewers will begin to click. Eventually, if the story truly has mass appeal, it will gather clicks rapidly and expand quickly.

To avoid a slump, curators can recognize the potential for a story to eventually cover all radii of interest and can pluck it out of the expansion process presenting it for all users to see. At that point, the clicking would be open to all users, and like the trash collection story, it would expire once the clicking slowed to a crawl.

With this system, stories with local interest stay local, stories with regional interest remain regional, and stories with national mass appeal go national.

Users would now be served by a social news aggregator and see both national and local stories of interest, and since the stories must expand organically at the local and regional levels first, it becomes more difficult for agendas to influence the expansion.

If a user lived in Brooklyn, they could be certain when they log on that stories from all their local newspapers, television stations, blogs and so on will be there in addition to stories which have gathered enough votes to be of national interest. Yet, that same user could then select to begin their browsing from Topeka instead, where they would again see stories from local news sources in that area in addition to national stories.

Users could choose not to view national stories at all, or they could choose multiple radii of interest to be presented simultaneously, thus tracking several regions or topics at once.