I don’t regularly use Google News, but I’m convinced that it is an effective way to receive news personalized to my tastes. What makes Google News an adequate article search engine for the average user? It is computer generated, articles from around the world are featured, it’s personalized to each user with a rating system, and all the information is recent and relevant.
It was launched in September of 2002 with an abundance of 4,000 articles available. The creator Krishna Bharat had it in Beta mode until 2006. How it works is, a computer scans through articles and highlights the most recent and relevant stories. All the articles are categorized by topic. Some topics include business, technology, entertainment, world news, regional news etc. There is a variety of different articles on one topic, allowing for the most perspectives to be introduced. Top stories have their own category on the top of main page. There is also a recent and most popular category. There are multiple different news editions to choose from and 19 different languages.
Alltheweb.com was being used before Google News was created. So what makes Google News special? Google News features the most recent stories. Stories are constantly being uploaded. News sources also have the choice of being on Google News. Instead of “hosting” the information the publishers of the articles receive credit. For example most of the links just take you directly to the webpage where the article is located (similar to how Google Search works). It works comparable to a website such as stumbleupon.com where it personalizes the stories that a user receives to their interests. Each user also has his or her own personalized page. A rating system is included utilizing badges and stars to further improve the efficiency of the personalized page.
Not only does Google News include articles but it also throws in YouTube videos and images that are related to particular topics. Sharing is easily accessible through the +1 function. This allows the user’s personal profile appear on search results and ads. This +1 (part of Google+) is currently in beta. I found myself on Google News at one point while doing research. I found that it didn’t prove to be useful when looking for news from the past. It certainly is effective for those who are looking for everyday news from around the world. Here is a walk through on how Google News works:
The current top story as of today (February 10, 2012) is the RCMP shooting suspect published by the CBC. Underneath the headline on the Google News homepage there are multiple photo links to other news sources that feature this story as well. It also lists that there are 439 other news sources covering this story. This article was posted only 28 minutes ago. There are buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Email and +1 before you even read the article. When I click on the article it takes me directly to the CBC News website. On the right hand side of the article there is a reappearance of these social networking buttons and also gives a count of how many shares there have been. +1 has zero. Again at the bottom of the article there are duplicates of these buttons. Back onto the Google News homepage the article post also includes the same story on the most credible or popular news sources such as the Vancouver Sun and Toronto Star. Links to related articles are given at the right hand side “Royal Canadian Mounted Police” “Alberta” and “Edmondton.” Again this link was only updated 3 minutes ago and refreshing the page after only a few minutes theres now a new Top Story demonstrating the efficiency of Google News.