Google Announces "News Lab" For Journalists and Entrepreneurs

[engine]

Google doesn't want to get left behind in the race for users' eyes and has created News Lab to develop systems which will appeal to the widest possible audience. News is curated through so many different ways, and twitter is a fine example of people-power when it comes to on-the-spot, instant news reports. Of course, it's the journalists that make breaking news into a story, so it'll be interesting to see how News Lab develops.
Facebook's initiatives are well known, so it's as if Google's is a little late to the table with this one. Despite that, i'm sure it'll be a success, as long as the media is on board, and it's not seen as just a data source to mine.

we’ve created the News Lab, a new effort at Google to empower innovation at the intersection of technology and media. Our mission is to collaborate with journalists and entrepreneurs to help build the future of media. And we’re tackling this in three ways: though ensuring our tools are made available to journalists around the world (and that newsrooms know how to use them); by getting helpful Google data sets in the hands of journalists everywhere; and through programs designed to build on some of the biggest opportunities that exist in the media industry today.link [googleblog.blogspot.com]

The News Lab is a global effort, with teams in the U.S., U.K., France, and Germany to start—and we’re also powering the training and research arm of Google’s Digital News Initiative [webmasterworld.com] in Europe.

[newslab.withgoogle.com...]

[shri]

With all due respect to Google, not a single new data source was released / revealed.

Yay! for curated YouTube, Double Yay! for Trends...

If they wanted to counter Apple, they'd have announced a rock solid feature rich API for Google News.... with PubSub features. Perhaps tied it into their public datasets that are available on the cloud. Then how about connecting that to verified videos, embedable snippets etc, IAB taxonomies, sentiment analysis, term extraction? Sort of like what Alchemy, Embedly and a few others do, but a LOT better.