1. A method for sending a customized news stream to be displayed on a user device, the method comprising: identifying, by one or more servers, dwell times spent by a plurality of users while accessing a plurality of items, each item belonging to one media type from a plurality of media types, the plurality of media types having varying average dwell times, wherein the dwell time of an item is based on an amount of time that the item is displayed to each user that views the item; for each media type, determining, by the one or more servers, statistical parameters for the each media type based on the items belonging to the each media type, wherein determining the statistical parameters for each media type includes, calculating an average dwell time for items of the each media type, and calculating a standard deviation of the dwell times for items of the each media type; obtaining, at the one or more servers, a normalized dwell time for each item, the normalized dwell time of an item based upon a quotient of a difference between the dwell time of the item and the average dwell time for items of the media type, and the standard deviation of the dwell times for items of the media type, wherein normalized dwell times are a standardized measurement of the dwell times that enable ranking of items of different media types; determining, at the one or more servers, a priority for each item of the plurality of items based on the normalized dwell time of each item and a profile of a user; and sending, from the one or more servers, a news stream to the user device for presentation on a display associated with the user device, the news stream configured to be presented on the display associated with the user device in an order based on the priority of the items of the plurality of items, wherein the news stream includes items of two or more different media types, wherein operations of the method are executed by a processor.