For the past few months, Google has been testing new news layouts in the wild. Today, they announced those tests are now official.
If you’re signed into your Google account, you’ll now see “News for You” under the three “Top Stories” area. The stories in the News for You area are personalized and recommended based upon your Web search history.
There are also options for viewing these articles in various formats. The screens below show standard list view, which lists one story per topic. Or, you can view each topic in groups, either list-style or in columns (also illustrated below).
A new look for Google News is appearing in the wild. The new layout still uses three columns for categories, top stories and recent news. Departing from the traditional blue ‘news-only’ links, the new design includes video news and related opinion and news stories in the main results. Historically, Google has presented green links for alternate news agency stories and a link for all sources.
In the newly spotted layout the “all sources” link only appears beneath the top-most story. In-line with the link are icons for sharing. In line with the phased rollout of their social strategy, Google’s new +1 button is still missing, but there are icons for Google Reader, Buzz, Twitter and Facebook.
Google is constantly testing out new features in search, advertising, and products. Here’s a quick rundown of four of their latest tests involving Twitter profile integration, AdWords display URL spacing, a revamped News layout, and AdSense ad variations.
Link Twitter Profile to Google Profile
Is more Twitter integration coming to Google’s social search results? This screenshot shows Google asking: “Want to see which results your friends are talking about? Are you xxxx?”
Presumably, if you say “Yes, this is me,” you could then connect Twitter to your Google Profile, which will then further integrate more Twitter results and personalize your search results based on your social circle.
A French court fined Google 430,000 Euros for four breaches of copyright, while the Spanish courts are considering referring a ‘right to be forgotten’ case involving 80 instances to the European Court of Justice.
“We’re pleased that the [Spanish] court is considering asking guidance from Europe’s top court on whether Spain’s [data-protection agency] has overridden European law. It shows that key issues are at stake,” Peter Barron, Google’s head of European external relations, said in a statement,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Google News users are familiar with the color-coded categories on the left side bar. These categories include Top Stories, World, Business, Sports, etc. Now, Google News is giving you the ability to customize your categories based on a search query.
In the example above, I searched for google pr campaign. Above the news results, is a new button, suggesting that I follow google pr campaign news. When you click the button, the new section is created and added to the side bar.
On Jan. 20, 2011, YouTube changed its homepage layout. On Jan. 28, Liz of the YouTube Team said in the Help Forum, “We’ve been listening over the past week, and it’s clear that some of you don’t like the new homepage.”
She added, “Change is never easy, and we’ll use your feedback to help YouTube improve in the weeks to come. But we know we’re on to something, and the new homepage is here to stay. Give it a chance, and find out why millions of users opted in and stuck with it.”
Like many of my neighbors in the Northeast, I’m hunkered down at home today because of the Boxing Day Blizzard of 2010. And while searching for “Winter Storm” in Google News I discovered a YouTube video from WNYC Radio.
Blizzard 2010, New York City, December 27
Yep, I’m watching the radio.
And newspapers are also uploading YouTube videos about the Boxing Day Blizzard. Here’s an example from The Boston Globe.
And The Associated Press has been uploading YouTube videos since 2006.
Monster Storm Heads for Mid-Atlantic, Northeast
Newsknife has just announced its ninth annual list of the top news sites based on their appearances in Google News. And for the first time, Newsknife has announced its first list of the top journalists based on appearances of their stories in Google News.
The Top News Sites of 2010 is compiled by Newsknife, which is is a project of Industry Standard Computing Ltd (ISC). ISC is a software development organization based in New Zealand. Newsknife analyzes more than 161,000 listings by 5,859 news sites in Google News during 2010.
The Newsknife Top News Sites of 2010 are:
A new feature on the Google News home page shows which stories have been shared the most by Google users and on Twitter, though it isn’t clear if Google is tracking any other sources (e.g., Facebook). You have the option of viewing the most shared stories over the past 24 hours, past week, and past month.
This box appears at the bottom right of the main Google News page, so not in a very prominent position. Readers can click on the story, and also share the story themselves via e-mail, Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter, or Google Buzz.
Google will pay $8.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought against the company after its launch of Google Buzz.
Google’s attempt at challenging Twitter and Facebook in the social networking realm was greeted with a backlash from users upon its launch in February due to privacy concerns, as Google automatically shared personal data without the consent of Gmail users. Eva Hibnick filed the suit against Google a week after the service launched.
While Google Buzz might have intrigued many as an outreach for marketing purposes, many people were hesitant and even resistant to adopt Google Buzz.
