ReadWriteWeb: Google allows readers to customise news

Google has created a new way for its users to save customised news searches and publish/share these results with others in their own ’sections’.

“Custom sections directory, which gives users of some of our English-language editions the expanded ability to create comprehensive sections to put on their Google News homepage or share with other users,” says the announcement on the Google News blog.

Users will therefore be able to create their own news sections outside of those already offered by Google News.

As ReadWriteWeb explains:

“Part dashboard, part feed reader, and all user-friendly, this service promises to be both popular and useful. Users can create sections based on keywords and then publish their sections to directories for sharing with others.

“Multiple sections can be added to a user’s Google News homepage, creating a customized, keyword-based digest. this feature is turning Google News into the infinitely segmented, infinitely remixable modern newspaper; and with all the sources Google indexes, it’s just what users need. Unfortunately, it also deals yet another blow to suffering old media publications, many of whom aren’t too happy about the distribution of their content in the first place.”

via Google Enters Customizable News Dashboard Market.

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OJR: ‘Does your site really need to be in Google News?’

Just how important is it to get your site into Google News? Robert Niles raises the question on the Knight Digital Media Center’s Online Journalism Review.

“For many online publishers, affiliated with newspapers or not, the Holy Grail of traffic is inclusion in the Google News index.

(…)

“But is inclusion in that index or other search engines’ news indices really worthwhile for the majority of online news publishers? I’m going to argue… no. (Well, at least it’s not worth making a fuss over.)”

Full post at this link…

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Nieman Journalism Lab: Google News and the ‘blog’ label

So what’s a blog and does it matter? Google News has started – arbitrarily it seems – applying the ‘(blog)’ label to some sites and not others.

It’s all a bit weird, says the Nieman Journalism Lab’s Zachary M. Seward.

“On both technical and philosophical levels, there’s no meaningful difference between blogs that publish news and news sites that aren’t published as blogs. Many news organizations place material on both types of platforms without considering the content any different. Some use blogging software like WordPress to produce sites that look nothing like blogs.”

His analogy explains it brilliantly:

“Dividing content along these lines is like classifying brownies based on whether they were baked in aluminum or glass pans. There’s no difference, and it obscures what you really want know: if they contain chocolate chips.”

Full post at this link…

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Update on Futurity.org: the science news site run by US universities

Last week Journalism.co.uk reported on Futurity.org, publicised as an online news service through which US university departments will publish their scientific findings directly online in a digestible format – a project designed to combat a reduction in science reporting in mainstream media.

We were interested to learn that the site would be included in Google News and asked Lisa Lapin, one of Futurity’s founders and assistant vice president for communications at Stanford University, for more information.

“Google News is recognising Futurity as a news organisation and will be capturing our news for search, and for display within Google News, as they would another news organisation,” she told Journalism.co.uk.

A release initially announced 35 partners, although we now count a total of 39 participating universities featured on the site. All are members of the  Association of American Universities (AAU), an association of leading public and private research universities in the United States and Canada.

We asked Lapin if they would be adding even more to the service:

“As for partners, we wanted to begin with a reasonable size and institutions that have strong research programmes – thus it was natural for us to include AAU universities,” she said.

“To be elected to the AAU is quite an accomplishment and there is already criteria that we didn’t need to develop. There are 62 AAU universities in the US and Canada. We will discuss expanding futurity.org membership, but we would need to develop some criteria to assure that the news remains truly the greatest discoveries coming out of research universities.”

The project has attracted some criticism, as reported by the San Jose Mercury News:

“Any information is better than no information,” said Charlie Petit, a former science reporter at U.S. News & World Report and the San Francisco Chronicle.

“The quality of research university news releases is quite high. They are rather reliable,” he added. “But they are completely absent any skepticism or investigative side.”

Petit followed up with a lengthier comment and example on the Knight Science Journalism Tracker, and said that press releases published by Futurity should be clearly labelled as such:

“Press releases can and often do carry real news, and in professional and ethical style. In aggregate, they serve reporters and the public in an essential way. However:  They may be science writing. They are not independent journalism that seeks (if not always successfully) to get wide opinion and angles on the news. This is not a fine point. It is essential that the distinction be clear.”

Related: Columbia Journalism Review: Is Futurity the Future?

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – optimising your website for Google News

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paidContent.org: Interview with Google News’ Josh Cohen

A timely interview with Google News’ Josh Cohen, senior business product manager, following Google’s submission of a micropayment model for newspapers.

paidContent asks Cohen about publishers’ attitudes to Google, whether its become a scapegoat for the industry and about the search company’s discussions with publishers.

He also talks about adding more ’sources’ to Google News – following experiments with adding Wikipedia to the aggregator:

“As new, different sources for news and information begin to develop we will want to try to incorporate that as much as possible. What is a news source? It is increasingly grey. As much as possible we try to stay out of any sort of editorial or qualitative judgments. [The] aggregation of pubic information data – that certainly didn’t exist a few years ago.”

Full interview at this link…

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Google’s Spotlight – highlighting journalism of ‘lasting value’

A new feature has been added to Google News, Spotlight, which (according to a very brief explanation by Google) is :

“(…) section of Google News [that] is updated periodically with news and in-depth pieces of lasting value. These stories, which are automatically selected by our computer algorithms, include investigative journalism, opinion pieces, special-interest articles, and other stories of enduring appeal.”

By looking at both the search engine’s own explanation of Google Spotlight and the selection of stories it has flagged up so far, Nieman Journalism Lab’s Zachary M. Seward suggests, “Spotlight shines on longer features that have bounced around blogs for a few days.”

According to Seward, lifestyle and opinion pieces fare well, while the New York Times is a frequent source. He does see potential for the new section, however, as a way of using people’s online activity to highlight interesting and important material.

[Laura Oliver adds: The usefulness of Spotlight will perhaps be greater for those who use Google News as their first port of call for the day's headlines - but what portion of Google News' users behave in this way (figures welcome) needs to be taken into account.]

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YouTube: Google News releases tips for SEO

Google’s Webmaster Central has posted a video guide to how Google News works for publishers and tips for improving your SEO as a news source – very handy stuff:

Full post at this link…

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paidContent:UK: Italian Competition Authority searches Google’s Milan offices in newspaper dispute

According to several news reports the Italian Competition Authority searched Google’s Milan offices this morning as part of an investigation into the company’s abuse of its ‘dominant position on the internet’, says paidContent:UK.

The investigation was sparked by a complaint from the Italian Federation of Newspaper Publishers criticising the search giant’s lack of transparency in handling Google News – in particular the ranking process.

Full post at this link…

Google responds on its European Public Policy Blog stating that publishers can request to be removed from Google News at any time and that Google drives vast amounts of traffic to publishers’ websites.

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Journalism Daily: Guardian Q&A, Wired Journalists’ new look, Google News re-indexing

A daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site. Additionally, you can sign up to our e-newsletter and subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

News and features:

• Wired Journalists community acquired by Publish2
• Event: Guardian hosts live Q&A on careers in online journalism
• Smart Moves: Rich Sutcliffe to edit Brand Republic

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• Search Engine Roundtable: Google News now re-indexing with latest version
• CMLP: Anonymity of online speakers protected in District of Columbia Court of Appeals

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#FollowJourn:

• @kristinelowe/media journalist

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• CUNY New Business Models for News, as seen in Aspen

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