Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) 
news site, perpetually in beta, got an upgrade this week with the addition of a customization feature.
The news aggregator site is programmed with an algorithm that sorts through more than 4,500 English news sites and calculates which are the most relevant.
The site, which has been in beta form for more than three years, reprints the headline, first sentence and perhaps a photo from a news story and creates a link back to the original source. The site, which is reorganized every 15 minutes, also groups related stories together.
Bundling the News
Now, Google News users can choose which news is most relevant to them by creating their own news sections, adding and deleting topics of their choosing, designing a front page tailored to their interests or developing searches to deliver news on specific topics of interest. These customizations can then be shared.
Individualizing content is bound to increase traffic to the site, one analyst said.
"Offering customization is certainly going to attract news users to Google
News. If you look at the popularity of services from Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) and Ask Jeeves,
you can see that customizing your online content is always enticing for
users," search engine analyst Andy Beal of WebSourced told TechNewsWorld.
No Human Intervention
Google News is source-neutral and is sometimes perceived as unbiased because the choice of top stories is made by computer. "Instead of having to go to the Web sites of traditional news sources, you can go to one central location and read the news that interests you," Beal said.
"With the new customization options, you can now truly filter out news that is of no interest to you. It's like setting up an RSS aggregator but without having to go out and find feeds," he added. "I think Google has hit a home run with the customization options," he said.
Even so, it's not perfect.
An RSS aggregator is one thing the Google News site does not have. Users still need a Web browser to access content, and cookies and Javascript must be turned on.
Beal has other questions as well. "How many people actually visit the homepage
for Google News? I expect most people simply search Google News from their
Google search bar or have Google News Alerts e-mailed to them," he said. "I don't
necessarily think this new feature will drive more people to the Google News
homepage, but this could simply be a step in the direction for a My Google
homepage that competes with My Yahoo and My Jeeves."
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