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Google News Allowing Story Participants To Comment

Posted by kdawson on from the starting-at-web-1.0 dept.

Jamie found this analysis of Google News's foray into community commentary. They are starting it off by only allowing people involved with the story to comment — and participants must first be authenticated by email. The article rounds up other bloggers' views on the game-changing nature, and the possible dangers to Google, of this new feature. Here is a sample of comments to a Google News story.

8 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Google News Comments+ by eboluuuh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is a lot better than simply thinking they're silent until they're quoted in a future article.

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    ;d
  2. Good idea by bcmm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've been to demonstrations which have been seriously misreported by mainstream media. I'm thinking of this not so much as a way to get extra eyewitness accounts of big events as as a way of correcting media which parrots government and police press releases.

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    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    1. Re:Good idea by Chyeld · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And exactly how would they verify by email address that you were at the demonstration? Oh yeah, you registered an email address at anarchist.org before you went....

      This might be useful for 'human intrest' stories, and company/stock news stories, but I fail to see it being even doable for large scale stories like a demonstration, natural disaster, or etc.

  3. Targetting Slashdot user base? by sufijazz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If they allowed every John, Rick and Larry to post comments on links to news stories, would that be like..oh I don't know...Gdot.org?

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    2+2=5 for very large values of 2.
  4. This works as long as BOTH sides may comment by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But what if one side can't? Not everyone has net access. Not everyone actually knows about it being on the Google news page when he is involved, even if he has access.

    Of course, large businesses, governments and the like who can employ someone to monitor such activities will benefit from it. But you and me? Imagine you're getting into a legal battle with a large company. You have your hands full, meeting with lawyers and trying to keep from going under, do you have time to react to Google News? Hardly. Does the company you're suing (or that's suing you), on the other hand? With a few 100 to a few 1000 people working for them, most likely.

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    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. Re:Doctor Troll by BalanceOfJudgement · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Agreed. 12 billion per year for 3000 smoking kids a day is what, $11,000 each? That doesn t sound too profitable to me, especially since the government will stick it to Big Tobacco later for these kid s admittedly poor decisions.


    The $11,000 spent in one year for that one smoker can parlay into much, much more money for the tobacco company. The average smoker spends approximately $1600 per year on cigarettes directly. This means they'd only have to be a smoker for 6.5 years for the company to make a profit off of them, and most smokers smoke for much longer than that.

    Multiply that over 1.1 million new smokers each year and you can see how profitable it really is. They wouldn't spend that much money if it weren't really so profitable.

    But yes, I agree their advertising targets more than just children.
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    We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
  6. Google Grid anyone? by cxreg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sure seems to me like Epic 2014 is slowly coming to fruition

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    God Fucking Damnit
  7. Raffle? by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A raffle on how long before some is called a Nazi?

    I take 2 to 3 milliseconds.