My online newspaper

There are a few things I've been thinking about as I prepare to make a monumental shift from being a primarily print newspaper reader to an online news reader (I dropped the word newspaper because it just doesn't make sense in this application). I am also a Facebook user and frequent Amazon, among other sites. As I make this change, with the Kindle Fire my chosen new tool, I wonder:

- Will my online news providers allow me to personalize what I see?
- Will my online news providers learn what I like to read and move that to my "front page?"
- Will my online news providers be as responsive as Amazon and Facebook?
- Will my online news providers care what I think?

I'm worried that the same format I have struggled with while dabbling into online news with sites like MLive will continue to frustrate me. For example, when I clicked on Mlive today I found top articles about the Detroit Lions and letters to Santa. I don't want to read either of those stories. And I have no choice about what is right there screaming at me to read them.

I don't care about Detroit sports - or really any sports in Michigan. And I rarely care about any sports in the world ahead of real news. The only letters to Santa I care about come from my own children and I want to read them in private.

Will I be able to remove the "dumbed down" online content for news I really want? When the Grand Rapids Press changes to three-day-a-week delivery in February 2012, I expect more online for my subscription. If not, I'm going to be very tempted to move my loyalty elsewhere. It would be a monumental shift for me - I have been a loyal "local newspaper" reader since I was a teen-ager. Those papers have included the Vista Press, North County Times, Huron Daily Tribune, News-Register and Grand Rapids Press. I have loved them all.

Will I love what online news providers provide me? It really depends on whether or not they can prove to be as smart and relevant as those print papers have been all those years....