Google News was created by Krishna Bharat in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. And the service was launched with 4000 news sources in September, 2002, but was in beta until 2006. It is improving and developing all the time. Now Google news may be our first choice to search for daily news and information.
Actually, Google news is not the first company to tackle news researches. But the competitors, AlltheWeb.com is now a Yahoo! operated site, while the lesser-known Newsseer.com is full of advertisement now. The reason why Google news still exists is that it changes with the society develops. Apparently, difference can be told through a screenshot of AlltheWeb.com below.
What does Google news do? It constantly updates news from 4000 different sources home and abroad. When you open the website, you will see what’s happening in globe. Google news doesn’t host content; it just provides links to publications’ pages. There are no “human” editors – service is offered by computer algorithms without human intervention. It sends e-mail alerts on various keyword topics, too.
What mentioned above are some regular things that a news search engine should do. It is personalization service that makes Google news more individual. “With this service, you pick the story that interests you and then pick the news sources” vs. “pick a source and then pick the story that interests you.” – Marissa Mayer (Google Product Manager). If you don’t want to see news about business, you just need move that tag to trash. Moreover, news is ranked by freshness, credibility of the source, and number of sources publishing a story related to the news. According to most people’s habits – only read the stories on the first page, it is convenient to find what is needed. Besides, they’ve added the +1 function, so you can share the news articles you enjoy with your friends. This function is very useful for social network becomes a gradually dominant role in spreading information nowadays.
“This product is about innovation,” Marissa Mayer said. As she said, Google news changes our approach to news and information in a way, which makes it more convenient for us. There are tons of news on the Internet, but perhaps what you need is only a little. Thus, Google News is your news, your personal news indeed.