Google Plus + Google News
Google News: Spotlight section will include articles that have been publicly +1’d by contacts; http://eicker.at/GoogleNewsPlus
Tagged: Google News Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
Gerrit Eicker
Google News Editors’ Picks
Google leaves its algorithm–centricism: adds serendipity to Google News via Editors’ Picks; http://eicker.at/GoogleNewsEditors
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Gerrit Eicker
Google News Help: “Editors’ Picks is a feature that showcases original, innovative news content that a news publisher has on their site at any given time. This content may include long-form narrative articles, slideshows, interactive graphics, or video stories, just to name a few possibilities. – The links you see in Editors’ Picks are hand-picked by the news organization whose logo is displayed above the links. Google News does not select the articles. – If you are a News publisher and wish to submit an Editors’ Picks feed to Google News, please review our guidelines and documentation first.”
Google: “Google News is introducing a new section in the right-hand column of the U.S. edition. The section is called ‘Editors’ Picks,’ and it displays original content that publishers have selected as highlights from their publications. This is the latest addition to recent improvements we’ve made to the variety and presence of stories and multimedia on Google News. – An array of news organizations, including local, national and niche publishers, are now using Editors’ Picks to display their best, most engaging content. Because Google News relies on algorithms, Editors’ Picks will always be just that- picks provided by publishers themselves, and not by Google. … You may have first noticed Editors’ Picks as an experiment last year. Based on the data from that experiment, we have been working with nearly two dozen publishers in recent months and have seen a positive response from readers and publishers alike: readers get the news they’re interested in from the sources they trust, and publishers receive higher traffic to their websites.”
Nieman: “When Google News launched in 2002, it did so with some declarations: ‘This page was generated entirely by computer algorithms without human editors.’ And: ‘No humans were harmed or even used in the creation of this page.’ – That core approach – computerized curation, algorithmic authority, NoMo sapiens – has served Google News well in the nearly-a-decade it’s been around… Editors’ Picks, a display of original content that journalists (human ones!) have selected as editorial highlights from their publications. … That’s a big deal, and only partially because of Google News’ traditional algo-centricism. … In addition to providing users with more good content, Editors’ Picks might also pave the way for more effective partnerships with news publishers. … For publishers, Editors’ Picks is also a way to highlight brand identity within a platform that has tended to emphasize news stories over news institutions. … It takes the notion of serendipity, in other words, and applies it to news organizations themselves.”
SEL: “More than a year after the experiment began, Google News has brought Editor’s Picks to the home page of its US site – marking the first real human-curated content on what Google has proudly said was always a completely algorithmic way of presenting news. – It could also be seen as something of an olive branch toward publishers, especially given the shaky relationship that’s existed between the two.”
SEW: “This appears to be a win-win for everyone involved. News publishers now have a mechanism to let Google know what their featured stories are. – Readers will be able to see additional content in the form of these features. As a result, Google will likely see a boost in on-site time and stickiness. Clearly the number of articles you read will help you collect Google News badges. – However, bringing search back into the conversation for a moment: since these articles are hand-picked by the editors – which may include editorials and paid features – will this adversely affect relevancy?“
Gerrit Eicker
Google News Gamification
Google adds sharable badges to Google News: 500 badges for 50,000 news sources; http://eicker.at/GoogleNewsGamification (via +Breuer)
Gerrit Eicker
News Media
Rosenstiel on journalism myths: traditional news media, advertising, content, newspapers, hyperlocal; http://eicker.at/NewsMedia
Gerrit Eicker
Commentarist offline
Der Commentarist ist offline: aufgrund der Drohung mit massiven rechtlichen Schritten durch zwei Verlage; http://eicker.at/27
Gerrit Eicker
NYT vs. Google
The NYT asks for regulations of the Google algorithm: http://j.mp/bCwI4g and Marissa Mayer responds; http://j.mp/cXl54c
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Gerrit Eicker
NYT: “Google handles nearly two-thirds of Internet search queries worldwide. Analysts reckon that most Web sites rely on the search engine for half of their traffic. When Google engineers tweak its supersecret algorithm – as they do hundreds of times a year – they can break the business of a Web site that is pushed down the rankings. … The potential impact of Google’s algorithm on the Internet economy is such that it is worth exploring ways to ensure that the editorial policy guiding Google’s tweaks is solely intended to improve the quality of the results and not to help Google’s other businesses. – Some early suggestions for how to accomplish this include having Google explain with some specified level of detail the editorial policy that guides its tweaks. Another would be to give some government commission the power to look at those tweaks. … With these caveats in mind, if Google is to continue to be the main map to the information highway, it concerns us all that it leads us fairly to where we want to go.”
Mayer: “Search engines use algorithms and equations to produce order and organisation online where manual effort cannot. These algorithms embody rules that decide which information is ‘best’, and how to measure it. Clearly defining which of any product or service is best is subjective. Yet in our view, the notion of ‘search neutrality’ threatens innovation, competition and, fundamentally, your ability as a user to improve how you find information. – When Google was launched in 1998, its fundamental innovation was the PageRank algorithm. It was a new and helpful tool in helping users decide which was the best information available – and one of many hundreds that have since been deployed by search engines to improve the ranking and relevance of their results. – Yet searching the web has never been more complex. Type ‘World Cup’ into Google today and you will see millions of returns, ranging from recent news articles to images of players. Often the answer is not a web page: sports scores, news, pictures and tweets about matches are included. Such results stem from an upgrade in Google’s technology launched in 2007, which made it possible to include media such as maps, books, or videos on a results page. … Here the practical challenges would be formidable. What is fair in terms of ordering? An alphabetical listing? Equally, new results will need to be incorporated – new web pages, but also new media types such as tweets or audio streams. Without competition and experimentation between companies, how could the rules keep up? There is no doubt that this will stifle the advance of the science around search engines. … But the strongest arguments against rules for ‘neutral search’ is that they would make the ranking of results on each search engine similar, creating a strong disincentive for each company to find new, innovative ways to seek out the best answers on an increasingly complex web. … We know that Google plays an important role in accessing information. We also welcome scrutiny and want to ensure everyone understands how we work. Yet we believe the best answer for a particular search changes constantly. It changes because the web changes, because users’ expectations and tastes evolve and because the media never stay still. Yet proponents of search neutrality are effectively saying that they know what is ‘best’ for you. We think consumers should be able to decide for themselves – with an array of internet search engines to choose from, each providing their very best.”
SEL: “The New York Times is the number one newspaper web site. Analysts reckon it ranks first in reach among US opinion leaders. When the New York Times editorial staff tweaks its supersecret algorithm behind what to cover and exactly how to cover a story – as it does hundreds of times a day – it can break a business that is pushed down in coverage or not covered at all. … And Now, Without The Satire… Search engines are very similar to newspapers. They have unpaid ‘organic’ listings, where usually (though not always), a computer algorithm decides which pages should rank tops. The exact method isn’t important. What’s important is that those unpaid listed are the search engines’ editorial content, content it has solely decided should appear based on its editorial judgment. … What the New York Times has suggested is that the government should oversee the editorial judgment of a search engine. Suffice to say, the editorial staff of the New York Times would scream bloody murder if anyone suggested government oversight of its own editorial process. First it would yell that it has no bias, so oversight is unnecessary. Next it would yell even more loudly that the First Amendment of the US Constitution protects it from such US government interference. … Guess what. The First Amendment protections of freedom of speech and freedom of the press apply to more than newspapers. In fact, they apply to search engines. The courts have said so, most clearly back in May 2003, in the SearchKing case. … But by and large, Google’s been a net positive actor, from where I measure things. It deserves better than a knee-jerk reactionary editorial from what’s supposed to be one of the leading newspapers of the world.“
Gerrit Eicker
Aggregation
Rivera, Techmeme: Aggregation works best for industries where ideas can change views of people; http://j.mp/c7Qd4v
Gerrit Eicker
Google News: Agenda Setting
Trendrr: Google News cares more about Facebook, Twitter, Apple than Iraq or Afghanistan; http://j.mp/caDzIC
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook: #4 Traffic Source
Hitwise: Facebook is the #4 source of visits to news and media, after Google, Yahoo, and MSN; http://j.mp/c557Bo
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Gerrit Eicker
Facebook: “At any given time, the news on your home page can consist of celebrity gossip posted by your sister, sports scores from the ESPN Page, and a political debate among your friends as they cite their favorite blogs. With so much information at your fingertips on one site, Facebook can serve as your personalized news channel.”
Hitwise: “News and Media is the #11 downstream industry after Facebook, receiving 3.69% of the social networking site’s traffic. To offer a comparison, 6% of downstream traffic from Facebook went to Shopping and Classifieds last week and 6% to Business and Finance and 15% went to Entertainment websites (YouTube in particular). … Facebook could be a major disruptor to the News and Media category. And with the Wall Street Journal already publishing content to Facebook, perhaps the social network can avoid the run-ins that Google has suffered recently with Rupert Murdoch. We will continue to watch this space.”
RWW: “Facebook is the player to watch. Facebook – the dreaded privacy-violating, Farmville-drenched, closed-data, social networking megalith (which is also fun to use and great in many ways) – could be the web’s best hope for transforming the world through the power of online syndication and subscription.”
VB: “All of the metrics services rank Facebook in the top 5 of all internet sites. The only sites that get more traffic are search engines (Google) and portals (Yahoo and MSN). Clearly the status updates Facebook users post to their pages have the power to drive large amounts of traffic to media sources when links are provided.“
Gerrit Eicker
Schmidt vs. Murdoch
Schmidt: We send news publishers 1 billion clicks a month from Google News, 3 billion from search; http://j.mp/5gkDCN
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Gerrit Eicker
Schmidt: “With dwindling revenue and diminished resources, frustrated newspaper executives are looking for someone to blame. Much of their anger is currently directed at Google, whom many executives view as getting all the benefit from the business relationship without giving much in return. The facts, I believe, suggest otherwise. – Google is a great source of promotion. We send online news publishers a billion clicks a month from Google News and more than three billion extra visits from our other services, such as Web Search and iGoogle. That is 100,000 opportunities a minute to win loyal readers and generate revenue – for free. In terms of copyright, another bone of contention, we only show a headline and a couple of lines from each story. If readers want to read on they have to click through to the newspaper’s Web site. (The exception are stories we host through a licensing agreement with news services.) And if they wish, publishers can remove their content from our search index, or from Google News. – I certainly don’t believe that the Internet will mean the death of news. Through innovation and technology, it can endure with newfound profitability and vitality. Video didn’t kill the radio star. It created a whole new additional industry.”
TC: “Not even Google can save much of the dying print newspaper business, but it can help them build up their digital revenues. And that’s the subtext of Google’s message to newspaper publishers: Don’t shoot the gift horse that feeds you. (To mangle three well-worn phrases together). Those 4 billion clicks a month are a gift. While they might not add up to expense-account lunches all around at Per Se, they are nourishment nonetheless.”
Gerrit Eicker 08:28 on 23. November 2011 Permalink |
Google: Over the past few months, myriad sites across the web [including Google News] have adopted the +1 button to help start conversations. But there hasn’t been an easy way for signed-in users to see what news articles your friends are enjoying – until now. – Starting today, the Spotlight section will sometimes include articles that your Gmail contacts and people in your Google+ circles have publicly +1’d. You can see their profile pictures and click through to their Google+ profiles, just like on Social Search. And of course you can +1 the stories too, expressing your opinion and optionally sharing with your circles.”
SEL: “If you are logged in while using Google News and your friends or contacts have used the Google +1 button to like the stories in your Spotlight section, that information will show up in the Spotlight section near the article. It will even let you click on the name of your friend/contact to see their social profile on Google.”
RWW: “Yesterday, Google converted Google Chat to be based on G+ circles rather than email addresses. Earlier this month, the +1 button came to image search. YouTube and Google Reader have both gotten complete G+ makeovers, though YouTube’s hasn’t rolled out yet. – Google Web search has treated public G+ posts as search results since soon after the social network launched. Google is insisting upon making its new social layer a pervasive, personalized filter for the whole Google experience.”
VB: “Since it’s eventually going to be part of everything Google does on the web, some have determined Google+ usage to be practically unavoidable, or at least inevitable. – ‘We think of Google+ as a mode of usage of Google,’ said Google executive Bradley Horowitz in a recent interview with VentureBeat. – He went on to say that the Google+ features around other Google products will serve as ‘a way of lighting up your Google experience as opposed to a new product. It’s something that takes time to appreciate, even internally. It’s easy to think of Google+ as something other than just Google, and I think it’ll take more launches before the world catches up with this understanding.‘”