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Google Adds News Personalization

Posted by samzenpus on from the what-doesn't-it-do dept.

downbad writes "ZDNet is reporting that the Google News home page is now customizable, allowing you to add or delete main news categories (such as business, sports and so on), as well as increasing or decreasing the number of headlines within a section. They've also introduced a feature that lets you create your own section using keywords for a topic that interests you."

12 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. Whats your custom section? by 8400_RPM · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I created a custom section that searches for movies. What has everyone else added?

  2. Business Direction by Puls4r · · Score: 3, Interesting

    News, Maps, etc. It certainly appears that Google is poising themselves to become a one-stop internet site.

    However, they won't be able to do so without becoming an ISP. So the question is, where and when will Google break into the ISP market so they can capture a gauranteed customer base to compete with Yahoo and MSN?

    Is there a likely company for Google to partner with?

  3. Share preferences by Ronnie+Coote · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You can also share your preferences with others, because Google will show you a URL which will generate your selected view. At bottom of the page, hit 'Share your customized news with a friend'.

    Presumably, the code provided in the URL is a reference to a great big lookup table that they keep with everybody's preferences (custom search terms, layout etc). I have set up lots of custom search terms, and the URL is certainly not long enough to contain them all.

    --
    Candygram for Mongo!
  4. ok by TOWebstress · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is okay, but I'd rather see Google do what Google does best -- that is, break new ground and not just re-package what other portals have been doing for years. Call me nuts, but I would have expected more of an "oh cool" factor coming out of Google on this.

    --
    You see the look on my face, and yet you keep talking.
  5. Re:Google devotion by shawn0122 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That is a constant worry because when companies try to cover everything like Microsoft, they seem to stop innovating on the products that made them what they are in the first place. Google is much better then Yahoo by having many built in functions accessed through the search field instead of displaying them on their home page.

  6. Re:Being a mobile user I love the text only option by tehshen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I browse on a mobile phone, and its screen is teeny tiny (think 128x128 pixels). Google is clever enough to sniff the user-agent and provide a small, 5-result version for me, which I think is rather nice of it.

    It's a shame this only works for web searching, not Groups or News. News returns a file too big error, even with the text-only version you mentioned. Is there a way to get a mini-version of the news site as well?

    --
    Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
  7. Requires you to have cookies turned on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "Customized news requires you to have both Javascript and cookies turned on."

    Hence, they can track what you read.

  8. Alternate reason? by STFS · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe I'm pulling BS out of my ear here but does anybody know if this kind of personalization is being used to "sort" search results to personalize them as well?

    I mean, Google (or MSN, Yahoo or whoever does this sort of thing) should be able to find out some "personal preferences" of people depending on how they sort their news website, what they filter out and so on.

    Even worse, are they using this to personalize Google Ads?

    --
    You don't think enough... therefore you better not be!
  9. They missed: NO subscription/registration by starman97 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's the one thing tha most annoys me about Google News.

    I'd like to filter out all the sites that require some sort of registration to view them.
    If Google did that and made it prominant, a lot
    of those sites might change their policy since
    poeple would be ignoring them. If not, then too bad
    for them.

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    Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
  10. Epic just got closer to truth by the_argent · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Epic 2014

  11. Re:Support for Opera by justforaday · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It took a long time for Google: Suggest, Maps, etc. to work properly on Opera.

    Let's see...Google maps was unveiled on February 8. Opera (and Safari) support was added on February 28. Oh yeah, that's a horrendously long time...

    --
    I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
  12. Re:Saw it this morning by Young+Master+Ploppy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The first thing I did was think "yeah, this could be a really cool way to compare news bias..."

    So I added two sections side by side: one from the UK "World News" section, and the other from the US "World News" section.

    Top stories in the UK World News were

    and yet neither story was mentioned on the US side. The top story in the US world news was:

    Does this mean that as an advertising company, Google could be in danger of falling prey to the advertising pressures that rule the traditional US news media? Draw your own conclusions, I guess....

    --
    http://instantbadger.blogspot.com