Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Introduces Competition For Google News
Romeo E. Cabrera writes "In advance of an imminent launch of its own search engine, Microsoft has launched its own version of the popular Google News service. Based initially on feeds from the Moreover news aggregation service, the new beta service (known as MSN Newsbot) aims to provide news on a range of subjects including World, Sports, Entertainment, Science and Technology."
TinFoilHat time:
I imagine any news that is negative to MS' bottom line will be relegated to the back of the bus, much like Linux search results in MSN's search. Thanks, but I'll use a news engine from a company with in interest in cool tech, not spinning the news to appease stockholders.
Trolling is a art,
Anyone else notice this? Almost same layout, the time generated at the top right, the menu on the left. step 1. Find good site/idea step 2. COPY AND PASTE step 3. ???? step 4. profit
Microsoft has begun its invasion into things I use...
The whole power of the google news is that it is machine generated, and not directly controlled by a human. Remember that MS search engine is "based on" information found on the internet, but if you search for many well known things like say "linux windows" you get far different results than from other search engines (e.g. Google).
Just imagine once they start putting the same filter on the news feeds! I can't wait to see what sort of bias is introduced.
Google News: Radio Netherlands British Newspaper Claims Security Breach at Buckingham Palace
One of these is not news can you guess which one?
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
Quote: According to MSN, by tracking the interests of users of the site it can determine which stories are most popular and suggest stories that users want to follow based on the patterns of other users.
Great, now Microsoft can collect information on me without having to sneak around. "Your honor, Mr. Public asked us to track his every move when he was forced...UH...opted-in to MSN Newsbot". Of course, they'd _never_ use the information they gather for marketing purposes (ouch! my tongue is wedged into my cheek!)
Quote: Users of MSN Passport can get personalised news depending on their interest during past visits. When logging in to Passport, MSN Newsbot displays news from sources you've chosen in the past.
Passport users? Oh, you mean everyone who uses XP because of that annoying bubble that keeps pestering you to sign-up until you do.
So now I can read all the favourable press on Microsoft, have all my activity tracked and the rest of my privacy compromised so I can have super-specific product advisement beamed right into brain. Gotta hand it to you, Bill, your vast fortunes are eclipsed only by your ability to me, John Q. Public, exactly what I want (ouch! My cheek!)
Ruby on Rails Screencast
The reason I use google news very frequently is simple: they dig out news that I wouldn't find through casual news surfing on the traditional sites. Mostly international news which I DO care about, local news of a lot of cities and stuff that's just interesting and not tired and exploited (I wouldn't sit through a news story of the Peterson case even if they paid me!)
I don't see Microsoft matching that for the simple reason that MS is in it for the ads, the traffic and the money, while Google (when it comes to news at least) is doing it because they can and makes them look good (it's more a technological showroom than a add based news service. In fact, they don't sell advertising in that page)
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
As we saw with MSN's competing search engine, there seems to be some bias in the results...
-T
...so when average user uses the net, he will automatically use MS services, unless he goes to the Special-dialog in the Advanced-tab in some obscure settings windows...
It's really a bit like TV makers would have their own TV channels where they would show content made by themselves, and TV sets of their make would only display those channels... Oh, and using a microwave oven that could heat your standard TV dinner would require having their TV set as well or the result would look all funky.
Check out what 2 out of the top 5 "Most Popular Articles" are:
For example the latest SCO story links to the /. headline as one of the sources.
On the other hand, the same story on MSN NEWSbot does not provide a link to the /. headline.
But then, Google News lists 66 sources for the same story, while MSNNewsBot links to about 10, so it's hard to say if they're intentionally boycotting our popular Anti-MS site.
I would really love to see their news site regularly updated with /.'s Microsoft headlines :) That'll be fun to watch
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
too true. microsoft has talked a lot recently about how their committed to innovation. and yet, their two most recent releases:
2 1337 4 u!
... it's only in the uk? Maybe I missed something? I am a huge fan of google news. I am not a fan of MS and their divisions. But I will give it a try. It still bothers me... why only in the uk? Would others tend to trust this more? Isn't most of Europe really critical of MS and their monopolistic behavior?
I think I'll try it for a week and see what happens. Reading a few of the other posts here, we can't tell if it's truely biased or not, but also, we probably shoulnd't judge until we've seen repeating patterns. Most folks here *know* what to expect from google, and slashdot, and other news sources. And we can, for the most part we can trust google to be non-biased.
Let's see how this goes...
FLR
This bias claim seems to be self-fulfilling.
./ is the only place this site seems to be loudly announced right now, we the Slashdot readers are biasing sampling, and clicking on the pro-MS and pro-SCO stories more than anything else and moving them to the top, then coming back here, yelling "Bias!", which drives more /.'s to the site... rinse. wash. repeat.
See, it looks like they're judging headlines with a "popularity index" counting how many time users click stories. Since
If this is right... think we could try to create some odd results as a group?
Also is it tacky to have a headline: "Michael Jackson 'to be arrested'" and below that an ad "Find Michael Jackson Items on eBay.co.uk", and more stupidly, if less offensively: "Airline Network: Cheap Travel to Jackson".
you may not care, but microsoft does. remember that recent interview where balmer said that linux was "not innovative" because it was just "a clone of unix"?
ms has set their own definition of innovation. and they aren't living up to it.
2 1337 4 u!
I think it's good that Google has a competitor to keep them on their toes, honest, etc.
I'd be really curious to know if there is any implicit shading of news happening by use of different technology or explicit policy.
One way would be to do this comparison:
- Use Google's search engine to look up URLs that are critical of Google, favorable to Google, etc. and compare to using MS search engine to lookup URLs that critical of Google, favorable to Google, etc.
- Use MSN's search engine to lookup URLs that are critical of MSN, favorable to MSN, etc. and compare to Google using Google's search engine to look for, again, exactly the same topics.
This might also be done with regard to favorite wavelengths on the political spectrum, too, to see if there's any differences in returned results that indicate a different political weight (intentional or incidental, as the case may be.)"Provided by the management for your protection."
Do a search under "linus."
MSN
Google.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Heh, I remember you from a few days ago. I see you are still trying to make the same point. I guess we can go back into it, if you'd like. Buckle up!
For 90% of the population/market, the first couple of pages are all they look at.
If the first couple of pages are even close to 100% relevant to your search, then I bet you wouldn't look beyond them, either. Why would you? You found what you were looking for. If that's the case, then Microsoft would be accurate in their results, global domination conspiracy notwithstanding. However, if the initial results are insufficient, yet the seeker is, ahem, "manipulated" into viewing and accepting them... I'm sorry, I can't finish that thought, it's just too absurd. By your own words do you essentially call those people idiots. How could you possibly suggest that 90% of the population lack the wit or wisdom to look beyond search results that are not sufficient for their needs, while implying that a mere 10% are armed with the intelligence to say to themselves, "Hey, I was looking for Linux, not a migration path from MySQL to SQL Server!" and move on to the next result set? Unless you are going back to that whole *we* (your emphasis) are smarter than the average consumer nonsense?
When you control and manipulate those firsts few pages, you control public opinion.
I think you might want to ask the originator of this thread if you can borrow his tin-foil hat... if it fits.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Of course a search for "Google News" turns up articles about MSNBot right now! There are hundreds of news articles about MSBot because of its more recent release! All of the recent articles about Google News compare it to MSNBot because it's obvious that since MS couldn't buy Google that Bill is going to try to compete with Google. Personally I think that rumor was a really distorted version of MS trying to either buy Google's news algorythm or buy Google NEWS outright since the price to gert instant access to all that information is probably pretty high. Pound for pound, nothing is more expensive than information.
A much better comparison is "Google News" on Google to "Google News" on MSNBot. MSNB actually returns more results, but the second page is completely useless. Accuracy counts too; I'll stick with Google News. [The link is for Cowboy Neil]
Webmaster Wanted - Entropic Reactions