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Google News Leaves Beta
Aqws writes "As of 1/23/2006 Google News is no longer in Beta. It was in Beta for three years and four months. Here's the blog of Google News creator, Krishna Bharat, on the subject."
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Google News coming out of Beta is a clear indication that Google has jumped the shark.
Alas, poor Google. I knew thee well.
Google News Headline: Google News out of Beta.
Story at 11.
-Teiresias
But what does that mean for Google? Wasn't the point of keeping it in beta to insulate it from lawsuits from a lot of the bigger newsgroups (Reuters, AP, et al)?
My MythTV HowTo
I guess that since it's now not beta anymore, we can all finally use it! All of those of us who held back until it was ready for market can rest assured!
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Can we use this figure of "more than 3 years" as any indication for the rest of their products?
This is a question for software developers - does a company like Google have a system that generally produces "1.0 quality" software after a certain amount of time, or does it depend entirely on the nature of a particular project?
I only ask because I can't wait for Gmail to go "live" for real.
Was the initial article right? You're asking if it "still" has a bias, but you're basing this on a Slashdot article, which often is about as accurate as a man standing on the street corner talking to Jesus with no pants on.
I don't respond to AC's.
It's already in the news!
Several months ago there was an article on slashdot claiming that the algorithm for google news had a built in bias to favor politically conservative/right wing news sources?
Is this still true?
Yes, the article is still on Slashdot.
Chris (ever helpful)
Of course not, thats a bunch of hooey perpetrated by idiots on slashdot.
Think about it for a second, why in God's name would having the word 'beta' stuck in front of it be any kind of legal insulation? The population can still access it, the "damage" if any would still be done.
The truth is that there is nothing wrong with anything Google is doing, all they are doing is grabbing headlines and snippits. It falls under "fair use", and they direct the traffic to your news site anyway, so where's the problem? If you personally don't want your site involved all you have to do is opt-out. It is clear as day.
try hitting "refresh"
Google news is rather dubious. There's no real insight into how it selects headlines. There are reports that it will happily take as 'news' press releases from the BNP in Britain, which is a little like giving news releases from the Ku Klux Klan the same prominance as the NYT. Google caved under pressure to China to screen thoughtcrime out of its results. I'm not sure I like Google anymore.
I recently read Joel Bakan's The Corporation, which argues that due to their defining characteristic of only being beholden to profit and money, corporations are, in human terms, irredeemably psychotic. Google is an interesting case study, as it's set itself a higher moral standard, and has much further to fall. Google News was the beginning of that inevitable fall.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
Been using Google News since the beginning and thee have been few changes that I noticed... so what are the new features that come out of a full version release?
I just read the blog. I have not used Google News and have no axe to grind. However, I can't help but worry about a service that "finds or picks" my news for me using algorithms. Isn't anyone worried that someone could be tweaking the search criteria to control what is displayed? When the news comes from many sources you learn to read into the articles what each organization's hidden adgenda is. By leaving the choices of what is presented up to a machine that is ultimately controlled by a few people rather than many editors across several outlets, we make ourselves vulnerable to suggestion or manipulation. I can see why they were worried about lawsuits....just a crazy rant.
Didn't see the article you're referring to, but I doubt the allegation is true. On the UK site, I sent a note pointing out that at one time it disproportiately picked up The Scotsman and The Guardian. Don't know what the Scotsman is considered, but The Guardian is a soft-left newspaper here.
I didn't think it was political bias even then, just thought the algorithm needed a kick to get a greater spread of sources. I suspect the same algorithm would have been used for both the US and UK sites, and so I imagine in the US by chance the appearance of bias fell to the right, rather than to the left as it did in the UK.
Cheers,
Ian
I agree with alot of the posters calling google news "dubious" and such. There does seem to be a lack of information as to how they determine what exactly is news worthy.
That being said, they seem to choose all the headlines that I'm interested in, and I find it quite pleasant to browse the stories there.
Perhaps the decision making process for what qualifies as a headline is: "What will google users find interesting" -- Which seems perfectly fine by me.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
Only 3 years and 4 months in Beta? Haven't they learned not to rush a product to market?
Enlightenment is a pipe dream. So where's the pipe?
hmmn did you use Bayesian Filters to predict?
Beta. "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Google News has a severe and heavy bias towards certain types of media.
That's a pretty vague statement. Would you mind specifying which types of media Google is biased towards, and providing some sort of evidence for your claims?
The Google creators claims it is because their algorithims cause certain sources to show up near the top - but they have been caught "tweaking" results before.
Again, that's rather vague. What sort of "tweaks" have been made, what exactly are these "certain sources", who caught them, and most importantly, where is your evidence?
Can Google News answer to the charges that they are purposely altering search results for News?
Can you even state a specific charge for them to answer? If this alleged bias is really so "severe and heavy", then it seems that merely browsing Google News would reveal it instantly. However, it doesn't. If you want answers, then I'm afraid you'll have to ask actual questions, instead of making vague, unsupported accusations of some mysterious bias that you can't even specify.
... a news site like slashdot. Not for the dupes, mind you. But for the ability to comment on the news, to hear different opinions from different parts of the world, with a mecanism like slashcode moderation (that works better than nothing, as flawed as it is) able to filter the noise. Would anyone be aware of such a website ?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Their screening process for new entries is a little... biased. They'll let Landover Baptist (a virulently anti-Christian parody site) and some Neo-Nazi group get their content added, but wouldn't add Michelle Malkin, a blogger who is a professional journalist, get added because she "doesn't have an editorial staff."
I personally have little use for Malkin, but I cannot help but wonder about the people who turn her down, but let the kissing cousins of the National Alliance and Stormfront get indexed instead. Little Green Footballs was rejected for the same reason.
By now, you'd think that they'd have a customized service where you could create your own personalized Google News which allows only certain sources, allows you to add your own sources to categories so you can triple the size of one category, etc.
I used Google News for a while a number of years ago. I gave it up because it wasn't really doing a good job doing what it was supposed to: Presenting relevant news articles. About a week ago, I checked it out again. It still sucks. There were two articles on the front page that contained "news" at least two days old. Yes, the _articles_ were new, but the content in the article was days-old. I wonder if Google News took a little bit _too_ much influence from Slashdot.
The screened out results aren't some 'customs of the country' peculiar local ways. They are dissident sites that criticise and publicise China's human rights record. If there is one issue that transcends the borders of nation states it is people's favour of, and commitment to, human rights.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
Would it be fair if I chopped off your head for making a bad analogy? Signs point to yes.
If a company wants to have an internet presence it has to be searchable by GoogleGuess what? The standard Google search (web pages) and Google News are two separate systems, with independent opt-out mechanisms. So your site can remain searchable without participating in Google News.
If you are actually whining "I want my articles to get links in Google News, but I don't want them to use any specific words or phrases from my site" then you're being a psychotic dork.
I was going to mod you as a troll just to be funny, but if I did that I couldn't tell you that I did it here, and thus get the funny mod for myself. I'm really not sure how typing this comment is really helping my situation.