The popular search engine Google made a splash earlier this week when it introduced a revised version of its Google News service. The new version (still in beta) is a significant advancement over the previous one -- culling news from 4,000 sources on the Web, up from 150 previously, and updating news every 15 minutes, instead of once or twice an hour.

Google News is interesting on several levels, including that it's entirely automated. There are no Google editors, only computer algorithms selecting what are the top stories of the day and the best coverage of those stories -- and providing links to that content.

Why should you care about Google News?

I've written before that one of the most significant developments of the Internet era was the development of the "global digital newsstand" -- the ability for news consumers to read media outlets around the world.

With the new Google News, I think I've seen the best implementation of the global newsstand to date. The service calculates what are the most significant stories being published at any given time, and ranks them according to time published, number of links to the story, and credibility of the publishing organization.

It then presents them in a way that highlights news by its importance. The Google News main page is a sort of "front page" of a global online "newspaper" (or a more accurate analogy might be "wire service"), with stories placed in categories including top stories, U.S. news, world news, sports, business, science-tech, health, and entertainment.

What are the most significant news stories worldwide and in the U.S. right now? What about the most important business, sports, or entertainment stories? Google News tells you this by looking at what those 4,000 news sources are publishing, and then ranking them.

The first criticism you'll hear about Google News is that it is entirely machine based -- there are no human editors, and editors are necessary to make the news process work properly. Google admits that there will be occasional errors -- stories added to a news category or story topic that don't fit. The algorithms will be tweaked constantly to improve their accuracy, but because there's no human checkpoint, some errors are likely to show up.

So far, the service seems to do a pretty good job. For the most part, it would be hard to tell that there are no human editors making the story-placement decisions.

Actually, I would argue that the service does use human news-editing intelligence. It collects and analyzes the news publishing decisions of the human editors at 4,000 news organizations. It's not unreasonable to posit that this "collaborative" story placement is a more accurate reflection of the top stories of the day than the placement decisions made at a single media outlet.

Whether we're talking about the front page of the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek, Calif., or The New York Times, or the home pages of those papers' Web sites, story-placement decisions are made by a small group of editors. Google News makes its placement decisions on collective editing intelligence, so there's less likelihood of individual editors' biases influencing story placement.

If Google News does catch on, it could change news reading habits for Internet users. Instead of the traditional way of choosing a media outlet and navigating its content, Google News users enter specific stories via a third party (Google) and bypass news organizations' home pages. While that's hardly new, what is new is the existence of a Web entity powerful enough to draw substantial numbers of users away from news sites' home pages.

Best thing since sliced bread?

As I said earlier, Google News is a significant development. Analyst Sherman is equally ebullient: "I think it's going to turn the way we get online news upside down. ... It will change everything. ... It will transform the landscape of news on the Web. ... I'm blown away by this thing."

Sherman considers Google News to be "a gift served up to the news industry," and he urges publishers to take advantage. Distribution of news can be served up by orders of magnitude, he suggests. It supports the news organizations with the best reputations because their content typically bubbles to the top of Google's story selections. It's also great news for small news sites, which can be exposed to a huge audience when their content occasionally bubbles up.

Also, Google News is an incredible resource for reporters wanting to know what other journalists have written about a topic.

Editor and Publisher September 25, 2002

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

Google has been my favorite search engine for nearly four years. On September 27, 2002 it turned four years old. I started using it when it was in early beta out of Stanford University. Their news service is currently in beta and I suspect it will also be another major hit. It is quite clear that this is the best search engine out there. Many of you may not know you can use the "Preferences" section of Google so you can receive 100 "hits" on your search so you don't have to keep on clicking "next". I love Google, as they are committed to excellence and only focus what they are good at. They clearly are one of the major success stories of the Internet and they are currently the fifth-most visited site in the world. If you are technically oriented, you may want to review the fascinating MP3 by their chief operating engineer. The company is amazing; the majority of their staff has PhD’s. An interesting tidbit: Their chef is the also the former chef for the Grateful Dead.