Google News

Credit where its Due!

[Shakil]

I got a telephone call about 15 minutes ago from a relative deep in the mountains of Pakistan, informing me that the local villagers had JUST heard that in the last few hours the local Political Minister along with a few other people had been assisnated.

He did not have any more information.

So I try all the BIG news sources, including the official Pakistani Press, NO News.

Head over to [news.google.com...] > type in the deceased mans name, and up comes a story from a small Indian news site giving details.

I then call the man back in the village informing him of what/who/where and when this attack took place.

I think he is still in shock at the speed I relayed information, considering I am 000s of miles away sitting in my room.

Google News Rocks!

Shak

(its frightening how much technology/internet/google are changing the world)

[troels nybo nielsen]

A story like yours is one of the reasons why search engines' news searches make nemspapers uneasy. You acted as your own journalist and did your own research with a very easy tool.

(Technology/internet/google are _not_ changing the world. They are a very small wave in a very large proces.)

[chiyo]

Yep, I know the jury is still out on news.google but the search box there is magic, apart from the flashy picture filled front page. Ive had several instances of finding latest breaking news by typing in a couple of terms at news.google that i could never find elsewhere. even better than daypop and blogdex. so i use news.google now as first place. One reason is the broad variety of sources including non mainstream news sources and blogs.

News sources shouldnt be too worried. You still have to click to them to get the full story.

[rfgdxm1]

>News sources shouldnt be too worried. You still have to click to them to get the full story.

But this trend suggests that news sources today might have also have online editions. The market may be moving to selling ads on the online version than selling newspapers.

[rcjordan]

Editor & Publisher Mag: 2003 Predictions For Online News Biz [mediainfo.com]

[SlyOldDog]

Agreed Shakil. I use google news all the time to help me in my business.

I work in Telecoms and whenever we hear a rumour about a development on the market we only need to go to Google News to verify the facts.

I also use it to see what contracts have been one by my customers. I just need to type in "Nokia Bulgaria" and I see everything that's happened there in the last few weeks. It keeps us streets ahead of the competition.

Google deserves accolades. I might even be prepared to pay for it!

[Brad]

Much to their credit, Google News is very good with breaking news. They have done an outstanding job in this respect. They are not quite so good at more archival retrival. AltaVista news might be a bit better in that respect and with weeding out having the same wire service story being repeated dozens of times.

Even so, Google has done a very good job.

I don't thing the newspapers should be so worried but maybe the wire services like AP and Reuters should. Also I'm sure the other news agrigators have to be worried.

[GoogleGuy]

Glad you like it! It's a great way to keep an eye on what's going on in an industry or keep tabs on a company. Or you can just type in freaky weird things and see what comes up. In fact, the query freaky weird things brings up six serious news articles. Gotta love the web. :)

[FredZeppelin]

Hmmm,
and if I type in GoogleGuy?

News Rocks!

[vitaplease]

I wonder when they will add adword select to Google news, could make some interesting advertising.

[Shakil]

I wonder when they will add adword select to Google news, could make some interesting advertising.
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Premium Listings, keep on telling you :)

Shak

[JLindsay]

I use Google News a lot for business purposes. It has been a real godsend for us (we are a consultancy dealing with international political affairs). I would disagree that it poses a threat to Reuters, AP, AFP and other wire services as they are the breaking news services that make Google News so important. It is more of a threat to newspapers. What I really like most is the ability to compare different perspectives on a story. As for the archive value, this is rather limited as it only holds stories for about a month.

As for the advertising, this is the sort of service that we would certainly find interesting as part of our marketing!

[SlyOldDog]

Shak

SShhhh! You want the prices to go up?