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Google To Add 'News Feed' To Website and App (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google is adding a personalised Facebook-style news feed to its homepage -- Google.com -- to show users content they may be interested in before they search. It will display news stories, features, videos and music chosen on the basis of previous searches by the same user. Users will also be able to click a "follow" button on search results to add topics of interest to their feed. One analyst said the move would help Google compete with rivals. "Google has a strong incentive to make search as useful as possible," said Mattia Littunen, a senior research analyst at Enders Analysis. "Facebook's news feed is one of its main rivals. It is competing with other ways of accessing content."

6 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. Not on my computer by p51d007 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nice that adblockers knock that garbage out. Drudge, Google and others...(I keep /. white listed though).

  2. Deja vu by imidan · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is a great idea. Maybe they could organize their 'follow' system using an existing syndication technology, say, RSS, which is already widely supported by many web sites. That way, users could subscribe to sites and have stories and other items just show up in their feed. They can then read the stories at their leisure. Google could call it something like 'Google Reader'.

    1. Re:Deja vu by omnichad · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nah, they should let you pick some favorite feeds and let you put it on your home page with other widgets like weather and news. They could call it iGoogle.

  3. A step in the right direction by DickBreath · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is a nice effort. But it doesn't go far enough. Google, can't you please just tell me what I'm supposed to be interested in, and direct my browser to that page without any unnecessary effort or thinking on my part? Thanks!

    P.S., dear Google, make Google Glass only show me what I am supposed to see. After all: Hear no evil, See no evil, Tweet no evil! Don't be evil now.

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    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  4. Literally what killed Yahoo by darkain · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is literally what killed Yahoo, when they switched from a simple and clean search interface into being a media portal. Google became king BECAUSE they didn't have all this shit on their homepage, and everyone shifted from Yahoo to Google because of it.

    Maybe this will be the surge that DuckDuckGo needs to become more prominent. If only they had a simpler name...

  5. www and news by CanEHdian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I go to www.google.com, I want a lean fast-loading page with no other crap than the Google logo or Doodle. It's already taking forever to load compared to 5 years ago or so. When I want the other stuff, I go to news.google.com (well in my case, .ca in both situations). Google needs to get through their thick heads why people liked Google in the first place. And now they want to copy Yahoo! -- we all know what happened to them. Bad idea...

    --
    When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.