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When Google News was
launched over a year ago there was mild nervousness amongst journalists.
Was this a new kind of news site that might beat them at their own
game?
A year of Newsknife’s Google News Watch suggests that automated
Google News is a reliable, consistent performer rather than a News
Schwarzenegger set to terminate human-edited news sites.
Newsknife ran Google News Watch 47 times over approximately a year
to the end of October 2003, (read our
methods). We checked to see how well Google News, compiled
“without human intervention”, picked the top two stories chosen
by leading US news sites.
The summaries below are at four points during the year. They show
Google News initially picking the Top 2 stories of the moment around
59% of the time, improving to around 63%. CNN and Yahoo! News hover
throughout at around 77%, a remarkably consistent performance.
Over the year Newsknife has probably studied Google News more closely
than most people. We are a little surprised at the results. We thought
Google News “hit rate” at choosing the popular top two stories might
have increased more over the year, especially as Google are still
calling Google News a BETA (not final) version. This suggests they’re
fine tuning it.
Actually, we’re surprised Google News is still a BETA version after
over a year. The term BETA is commonly used for prerelease software,
and that seems a long time by software standards. But we commend
Google for having the courage to improve Google News in the public
eye.
We can think of ways that Google News could increase its above-mentioned
hit rate using automation, to match or surpass those of CNN and
Yahoo! News. More difficult though for a robot is detecting the
nuances within a story.
For example, if a terrorist bombing has just occurred the first
wave of news should give details of the bombing. The second wave
might be reaction from around the world. At what point should reactions
be introduced? And some reactions are more important than others.
In Newsknife’s opinion this is a challenge for Google News.
As a news surfer we think you can take two things from Newsknife's
year-long Google News Watch. First, Google News is not a traditional
news site. Visit it for its strengths, in particular its ability
to bring together a vast array of news sources covering any single
story. Second, whatever your favorite news site it pays to shop
around. Even the best sites don’t pick all the major stories all
the time.
Newsknife studies the major news sites closely every month to see
which ones are currently at the top of their game. If you surf Newsknife’s
top ranking news sites each month you’ll be in news nirvana.
And what can human news editors take from our Google News Watch?
Relax; Google News hasn’t beaten human editors - yet.
Google News Watch results:
Our start date was June 2002. The hit rates shown are rounded to the nearest whole number.
Final summary date: 10/31/03
Comparisons since June 2002: 47
Hit rates to date...
Google News: 63%
CNN: 78%
Yahoo! News: 78%
Summary date: 07/09/03
Comparisons since June 2002: 40
Hit rates to date...
Google News: 63%
CNN: 78%
Yahoo! News: 76%
Summary date: 05/01/03
Comparisons since June 2002: 33
Hit rates to date...
Google News: 62%
CNN: 77%
Yahoo! News: 74%
Summary date: 01/01/03
Comparisons since June 2002: 22
Hit rates to date...
Google News: 59%
CNN: 73%
Yahoo! News: 77%
What you'll
like about Google News.
Return to top of page...
Copyright © 2004 Industry Standard Computing Ltd. All rights
reserved.
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