What is an Interest Level?

An Interest Level expresses your interest in a topic or article. An interest level can be predicted by NewsBrain, or be an actual level set by you.

A level of interest is expressed numerically as a percentage, ranging from -100% at the lowest, through the 0% neutral value, up to 100% at the lighest.

The level is 0% when it is indicating a neutral, centered level. You are niether interested or disinterested - you are apathetic and don't particularly care one way or another. Neutral topics, no matter how relevant to an article, will not affect NewsBrain's interest level prediction.

The level can be raised to as highas 100%, indicating the most interest in the topic or article. Articles that are very relevant to a topic at 100% will receive a high interest level prediction from NewsBrain. An article you rate at 100% interest will have the topics relevant to that article adjusted up significantly.

The level can also go lower than zero, down to -100%, indicating the lowest level. As you'd expect, such low rated topics will cause relevant articles to get a lower interest level prediction, and articles you rate with such a low level will cause its relevant topics to be adjusted down significantly.

When you first run NewsBrain, it doesn't know anything about your interests, so it starts completely neutral, with all topics at 0% interest, and rates all articles at 0%. As you express interest in articles, and select categories in Feedly, topics relevant to them will have their levels adjusted. And if you set interests on particular topics, related topics and relevant articles will be affected.