News

Monday, 30 September 2002
News.google.com is in beta test.

Enrichment?

Last week I read the news via Google.

There are still plenty of competing news sites but Google already stands out above the crowd.

About HomeRun

Designing Web Usability
Bol.com/...
Chapter 9: HOME RUN.

I am convinced that Google News will be a success. It complies very well with Jakob Nielsen's criteria for a successful web site. Almost all of the criteria behind the acronym HOME RUN (.../webManual/...) apply.

HOME RUN
H
The Google news is of high quality. The site offers pluriform world class word news.
O
Google refreshes the page several times per hour. Chances are high that you see a page that is only a couple of minutes old. As a guarantee it lists the age of the news.
M
The download time needs a bit of improvement.

Unfortunately the homepage shows below the fold the headlines of all categories. It unnecessarily slows down the home page (measured with a 56K modem connection)

first useful text
5 à 6 seconds
whole page including generated thumbnails
20 à 25 seconds.
E
The site is easy to use.

The design and navigation are good. The articles are easy to read. Links are clear and easy to click.

R
The site complies with the needs of a news consumer.
  • The selection of world news is good.
  • The news is objective and fresh.
  • Below every article you'll find links to related stories, with a huge diversity of opinions from world wide sources.
U
The Google news uses the unique possibilities of the Internet,
  • continuously scans thousands of online news sources,
  • automatically groups stories by subject from several sources,
  • automatically selects the most relevant stories,
  • automatically scrapes the heading, introduction and a covering picture.
It is a fine example of artificial intelligence, my compliments to the Googlers.
N
Google clearly is a true Internet company. The news service nicely extends Google's unique search technology.

Thread?

A number of other news portals are not happy with Google's news service. For the moment their objections are limited to copyright arguments. Surprisingly other objections are not mentioned yet:
Will Google news head towards a monopoly?
  • The Google search engine has reached a de facto monopoly in 4 years.
    A site that misses in the Google result list might as well not exist at all.
    Will news only be news if it gets listed by Google?
  • Will Google obliterate competing news sites?
    Will Google news be thread to pluriform news gathering in the long run?
Thread to journalists?
  • The Google news is automatically assembled (...about_news_search...), fully by computers.
    Not a single journalist, editor or designer works on the individual editions.
  • Hopefully such a computer is objective. Yes, hopefully, as nobody is able to verify it.
  • Should or shouldn't you entrust something important as the news to a computer?
Till next week,
Nut

Born Thursday 26 September 2002, my second cousin: Noa Stad.
Congratulations to my cousin Yvonne.