The LA Times' new feature: Newsmatch

First there was YouTube, offering up a handy list of "related videos" I should watch after I finish just this one flash mob dance. Google seems to know my innermost worries, showing me ads for weight loss pills every time the word "beach" appears in one of my e-mails.

And then of course there's iTunes, whose "genius" thinks I would enjoy the new Julian Casablancas album, and Netflix, which thinks I should watch more cerebral foreign-language docu-dramas. Too true.

In our brave new YouWorld of hyper-customization, apparently nothing is left to chance, the experts, or even the editors.

The L.A. Times, bulwark of ye olde mainstream media in SoCal, has tried to do something innovative with their Newsmatch feature, which claims to personalize your news feed based on a quirky picture-based personality test.

Personalization is a popular tactic among media organizations in their mad scramble to get people interested in the news again, with some outlets even going so far as letting you create your own paper.

It certainly seems enticing. That is, until you try it.

If personalization-by-robot is ever accurate, it's because the personalized suggestions are based on words, or at the very least, logic. With Newsmatch, it's more of a cross between a bad game of Pictionary and a weird Rorschach test.

Shall we play?

First up, Newsmatch asks, "What is your kind of treat?" followed by 12 images, which include a remote control, a massage, a piece of chocolate cake, and, oddly enough, a dog and some children. I chose a picture of a sleeping man, but I wasn't sure if they meant a boyfriend or a nap.

The next two were actually relevant to news: I chose a passport for "What would spark a conversation with you?" and what I think is a scientist for "What issue do you care most about?" because, you know, science is good.

Then there were the lifestyle questions: "What is your idea of art,"  "What vacation would you go on," and so forth.

But the questions only got stranger from there.

Under "What does success mean to you?," there's a man sitting next to a laptop (I'm doing that right now, does that make me successful?), a man making a "Yes!" motion at a golf game, some celebrities, an apartment filled with angular furniture, and, my personal favorite, a white man putting a bandage on a grimacing black child.

My favorite question by far was, "What is the best thing about America for you?" The choices include, and I'm not making this up, some troops in tanks, politicians shaking hands, the Holy Bible, celebrities (again), a Macbook and a hamburger. No other pictorial representation of the American zeitgeist has ever made me want to emigrate more.

Then the site asks you to choose your area from some vague pictures of Los Angeles, and it asks you your age and your gender. Because of course, men and women should be told different information.

Then it tabulates the results and tells you what sort of person you are. Feeling some dissonance about my first set of answers (do I want the massage instead of the sleep/man?), I took the test twice and got two different results. Neither was grammatically or semantically correct. The first time, Newsmatch told me I was a "Bright Spark," which has something to do with being positive, energetic and loving intellectual thought.

The second time, I was a "Dynamo," with a strong sense of my individuality, a love of life (doesn't everyone love life?) and a hunger for knowledge. So apparently either way, I lust for facts. I can dig.

Then there were the correlating news results.

As a Bright Spark, I was given travel, "Europe stories," movie reviews and some fashion news. Because I'm a girl, remember?

I fared better as a Dynamo, where at least the Times suggested to me its "Booster Shots" column, which I actually do quite enjoy. And alongside my movie reviews, they also offered me a small box labeled simply "News." Personalization at work.

The Newsmatch feature is powered by a tech service called VisualDNA, which the Times ominously says is "used by more than 15 million people." The VisualDNA site claims to "transform unknown users into known people," and is a little too Skynet for my liking:

On completing the quiz, users are given personalized feedback based on their image choices. We place a great deal of importance on this aspect of the process to ensure the user has a positive experience and feels that we've delivered an accurate representation of their personality and worldview.

A demo showcases the API, which mashes your results into a databank and spits out a brief summation of who it thinks you are, including "attitude" traits like "chilled-out" and "philosophical." No acrimonious political sex-scandal stories for that guy.

And that's my chief complaint about Newsmatch and other such "personalized news" features. This widget paints me as a caricature which, if she were real, would be anything but "bright" because all she reads is movie reviews.

News personalization is inherently flawed because the news you read should not reflect who you are, it should reflect the world we live in.

Because the thing that I actually like most about America is that it's filled with Bright Sparks, Dynamos, and every other archetype in the VisualDNA matrix - err, "API." And the more we fragment ourselves into consumers of only certain types of news or blogs or coverage, the less we'll know about the other types.