Microsoft Plans News Aggregator

wyldeone writes "ZDNet says Microsoft is planning on creating a news aggregation service similar to Google's Google News. It will draw headlines from over 4,800 sites. It will also provide customized feeds, similar to Googles News alerts. Here is the beta version of the site."

Comments

What's new?

[BWJones]

So, what is new here? Seriously.........Is this another case of Microsoft coming late to the game and saying "Oh, well, we have one too", or is this another case of Microsoft publicizing they have something in the works that will come out any time now to keep other folks from entering into the fray? Come on, if you are going to get into the game, offer something new. For instance, take a page from the Apple playbook when Apple realized a little late that mp3s and online music was the way to go, Apple put some thought and effort into things and came up with not only the iTunes music store, but also the iPod. Both of which were nice innovations and spurred other companies to improve their products.

From the looks of Microsoft's news bot site here it appears that ther innovations are links to Hotmail, shopping, other proprietary properties and news programs of either Microsoft and NBC, and notably in the Science/Health categories, we have business news about companies such as Boston Scientific rather than real Science news. It's also more bandwidth intensive than the Google news site.

Re:What's new?

[carnivore302]

Actually, Microsoft coming late to the game is part of its success. They take a concept that has proved to be a success and extend it with their own additions. The (in)famous "embrace and extend strategy".

Sure, sometimes it backfires or fails miserably. But then again, if you don't risk now and then, you will not make significant gains either. Microsoft knows this all too well.


Click here for the Mystery Futures Link!

Re:What's new?

[Anonymous Coward]

They've done that for what? Over a decade?

How much money have they made in that time, again?

Not that I think it's good, or innovative, or anything, but it's clearly a good strategy to rake in cash, given their past history.

Re:What's new?

[AstroDrabb]

But c'mon, Microsoft is not going to slant their entire page

Why not? MS use to mess with MSN searches for Linux, etc. For a while, any Linux search would return content from MS's site about switching, or studies about how MS Windows has a better TCO. It was actaully on /., and after a while, MSN finally changed whatever they were doing and the Linux searches seem better, though not near the level of Google.

Deja-vu

[peterprior]

Ahh.. the good old "rip off something another companies done" move. Good to see they are still as innovative as ever. Doesn't google own any patents on this?

Re:Deja-vu

[nomadic]

Patents on a news aggregation service? Google came really late to that game, if any patents exist google sure wouldn't have them.

Next - Embedded in Longhorn

[grunt107]

I would wager that this news service will get embedded in the Longhorn desktop presentation layer. This would hide the IE browser from view (although its underlying tech would be the content server), allowing MS to further embed its applications further into the OS offering.

Re:Next - Embedded in Longhorn

[DarkGreenNight]

This could be the next logical step. And if correctly filtered information comes to your desktop there'll be not much incentive to go to other information services.

You'll be able to see the headlines of selected (in the bad sense) newspapers, and the newsfeeds of your favourite webpages. No incentive to go to the webpages, no incentive to go similar services (news.google.com), everybody plummeting (no ads revenue), but microsoft and friends. And then their friends will start to require subscription, after all you'll be already registered with passport.

Of course it can also be good, but we are trained to distrust monopolies. So, if bad times come, we'll be able to say "I told ya!". Or at best we can fight to avoid the nastier effects.

Any ideas?

Will we see a bias?

[digitalgimpus]

Considering MS owns MSNBC, I wouldn't be suprised if it's a bit bias towards it's own property.

I like Google partly for neutrality.

It's ugly

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like everything else MS makes.. It will not compete with G-news very well because they are -

- way too late

- poor at copying

- have more conflicts of interest

- made it ugly

Odoyle Rules

Microsoft News...The name you trust.

[SatanicPuppy]

Ummmmm, yea, Microsoft as a news provider. Just the job for a convicted monopoly. And don't say, "They're just getting news from other sites" because what you choose to cover is the biggest bias in the news industry.

I wish they would get over this illusion that they are a content provider. They are SUPPOSED to be a software company, and hell, I'll even throw the X-Box in that category. Maybe if they stopped trying to own one of everything and just concentrated on their damn OS, it would be worth buying.

Google news isn't entirely original either

[acomj]

newshub been doing news gathering for a long time..

google came and did it better..

Now MSN is throwing its hat in the ring. AOL will provide a web page with news/ other stuff based on what you want to see which is oddly good (It shows movies playing at the closest movie theaters..)

There a probably lots of others I'm missing.

Competetion is good. Hopefully everyone competes and makes theses sites better.

Win Win Win...

Not AGAIN... another COPIED innovation!

[Seraphnote]

Come on Microsoft! Geez. With that whole RESEARCH department you have and $50 Billion, you'd think we'd see MORE than this tripe innovation from you! Oh wait that's right, you put all your time in the AESTHETICs, mouse cursors, icons, freaking large graphical interfaces that treat the user like a child and use up half the screen's space...

this is particularly disturbing...

[Anonymous Coward]

after watching outFoxed I find this particularly disturbing. OutFoxed is an excellent just released documentary on the non-journalism of Fox News. Groklaw has shown how microsoft's news results skewed results from the SCO case. we need to be careful about our news sources. All of them.

Re:Ahh, why not. It's Tuesday.

[gosand]

Whinging" is a totally valid word; it's just not used in America. Because, you know, English was around far, far longer than your pitiful country.

Absolutely. But for you to use a word that is not used in America (technically the United States of America - just calling it America is kind of ignorant) is sort of a faux pas on your part. It is a British word, so why would you use it when composing a post towards Americans? It doesn't show that you have a better vocabulary, just a different one. Whooptie doo.

The fact that you spent so long replying says it all, really. You just can't accept that there are major flaws in your country. You're told at school that America is great, the govt. tells you that America is great, and you want to believe that America is great.

And how would you know what they tell us in school? I can accept the flaws of my country, but it sounds like *someone* may be a little jealous. Otherwise, why would you spend the time verbally attacking the USA? Upset that you can't win a Tour de France?

Well, you need a change. Go and live in Switzerland or Sweden for five years, and take note of the high standard of living, low crime rate, intelligent people and general good quality of society. THEN make your opinion up about America.

Umm, that would give me a better opinion of Switzerland or Sweden, not the USA. (oops, there is your faux pas again) Perhaps you should come live here for 5 years in order to get a more accurate opinion of this country.