Google News has become a trusted source for information on the web. The history of the service is of interest; it began as a response to the huge surge in news searches in the aftermath of 9/11, and evolved into its own modified search algorithm and data aggregation site. Today, there are even social, media, and a number of other elements integrated with Google News that the creators couldn’t have dreamed of during its 2001 inception. Now, Google News is getting another of its major organization facelifts – a common, if somewhat spaced out, practice.
This time around, Google is focusing on making the display provide more information, and more pretty pictures/video, in a smaller amount of space. There are several new elements Google is bringing into the picture to accomplish this:
- The page format is being shrunk down to a single column by default.
- The “Top Stories” section will now have at least double the number of stories. The top three will still be the most popular from your entire region, while the next three or more will be personalized based on your taste. This feature can be disabled at the user’s discretion, and replaces the “list view” format.
- Stories are now clustered even more closely, with only the top story showcasing anything more than its headline. You can click on the story section itself to expand the information inside.
- New labels will now be shown in stories. These include all your standard news denominators, such as “opinion” and “in depth.”
- New multimedia features allow users to look through a sliding bar of the images and other media from the pages in any given story cluster.
- Sharing options for links and media have now been made simpler and more visible.
While this feature was released on May 16th, it may take a little while to appear in all regions. However, the rollout has already begun! You can expect to see these new features in the near future.
[via the Official Google Blog]
